The caffeine buzz
Research suggests it might protect against Alzheimer's, Parkinson

Last Updated: 6:03 am | Sunday, December 31, 2006
http://news.enquirer.com:80/apps/pbc...612310347/1086

BY KATHLEEN FACKELMANN | GANNETT NEWS SERVICE
It's not the kick from caffeine that Sandy Schneider is after.

Instead, she's hoping new research that shows the drug may protect against Alzheimer's pans out. The West Harrison, Ind., resident's 80-year-old mother has the incurable disease.

"I do not drink coffee, and I typically drink decaffeinated tea," says Schneider, 57. "But I am going to start drinking coffee. I thought this morning I might stop and get a cup."

Schneider and others are betting on research suggesting that caffeine will offer protection not just against Alzheimer's but also against Parkinson's. Together these degenerative brain diseases affect about 6 million people in the United States. Cases of both diseases are expected to explode in the next few decades.

"Boomers are coming of age, and large numbers of them will develop neurodegenerative diseases," says Zaven Khachaturian, president and CEO of the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute in Las Vegas and the former director of the Alzheimer's unit at the National Institute on Aging.

The coming epidemic has fueled a search for drugs and other interventions that might slow the onset of these diseases, he says. If research by Gary Arendash and others holds up, boomers might be able to get some protection simply by enjoying an espresso.

"Caffeine is the most widely used psychoactive drug in the world," says Arendash, a researcher at the Byrd Alzheimer Institute in Tampa, Fla. "We think it might protect against Alzheimer's."

The research on caffeine ranges from a just-released mouse study by Arendash and colleagues to large-scale trials of coffee and tea drinkers. Such research might lead to the development of better drugs, Khachaturian says. Right now drugs for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's treat the symptoms but can do nothing to stop the underlying damage, he says.

Scientists like Arendash are searching for ways to stop diseases like Alzheimer's at an early stage.

At later stages, Alzheimer's destroys the brain's memory centers, leading to severe forgetfulness and confusion.

Arendash and his colleagues wondered if caffeine, the stimulant in coffee and tea, would slow this process in mice bred to develop an Alzheimer's-like disease.

Arendash gave young Alzheimer's mice either plain water or water spiked with caffeine - the human equivalent of about five cups of coffee a day.

Months later Arendash and his colleagues gave the older mice a series of brain challenges. They found that Alzheimer-stricken mice that had guzzled caffeine could easily find their way through a maze. Mice that got just water had more signs of brain disease and got confused in the maze, he says. The team just published the study online in the journal Neuroscience.

The human research seems to suggest that caffeine might shield the brain from subtle problems with forgetfulness - a possible early sign of Alzheimer's.

A study of more than 600 men published in the August European Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that coffee drinkers may be protected from mild memory and thinking problems that come with old age.

A 2002 study in the European Journal of Neurology found that people who consumed more caffeine in midlife appeared to be protected from developing Alzheimer's later on.

Studies on caffeine and Alzheimer's are just starting to roll in, but the literature on Parkinson's is well-established:

A study of more than 8,000 men in the Journal of the American Medical Association by G. Webster Ross and colleagues found that those who drank the most coffee (more than three cups a day) were the least likely to get Parkinson's.

Another large study, published in 2003 in the Journal of Neurological Sciences, found that tea and coffee drinkers were protected from Parkinson's.

The list of large human studies linking caffeine to a reduced risk of Parkinson's keeps growing, says Caroline Tanner, director of clinical research for the Parkinson's Institute in Sunnyvale, Calif.

The evidence on caffeine and Parkinson's makes a strong case for coffee, but it still falls short of scientific proof, Ross and others say. To get a more solid picture of caffeine's potential benefit, researchers will need to do much larger human studies of caffeine, then watch for early signs of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, Khachaturian cautions.

So where does that leave people like Schneider?

Ross, a neurologist at the Honolulu Department of Veterans Affairs in Hawaii, says in most cases, drinking coffee and other caffeinated beverages can't hurt. But people with high blood pressure or a history of sensitivity to caffeine should first talk to their doctor.

Connie Lesko of Wimauma, Fla., who has two parents with Alzheimer's, says she knows enough about the disease to take a chance on caffeine. She says that her father can still discuss current events, but her mother has more advanced disease and sometimes cannot remember family members, including Lesko.

That pains Lesko and brings up worries about the future. "If you've lived with this disease - if it is part of your life - you can't help but be fearful," she says.

So Lesko now drinks more caffeinated beverages, including coffee and several cups of black tea every day. The prospect of staving off this disease even by a little has pushed her to change her habits.

"It's worth a shot," she says.