A new study has found that changing coffee drinking habits, in terms of amount of intake, may influence the development of mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
Previous cross-sectional, case-control and longitudinal population-based researchers have discovered that aside from the immediate effects of caffeinated beverages, higher consumption of coffee, tea and other drinks containing caffeine may also provide protection against cognitive decline and boost mental health. Such effects on dementia and neurological health risks, however, may hold true based on several exceptions.
The researchers from the Italian institutes University of Bari Aldo Moro, Geriatric Unit & Laboratory of Gerontology and Geriatrics, IRCCS "Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza" and Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) analyzed the data contained in the Italian Longitudinal Study on Aging (ILSA), a population-based study with a 3.5 median follow-up. The study sample included 1,445 individuals recruited from 5,632 subjects, aged 65 to 84 years old from eight municipalities across Italy.
The findings of the investigations, published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, showed that the participants, who constantly drink moderate amounts of coffee or one to two cups per day, have a decreased rate of developing MCI compared to those who constantly do not or rarely drink coffee.
Changing coffee drinking habits is also found to affect the development of MCI. For cognitively healthy subjects who increased their coffee consumption with time by greater than one cup of coffee per day, the rate of developing MCI doubled compared to those who reduced their coffee intake by less than one cup of coffee per day.
The same group of participants also showed a one-and-a-half increase of MCI rate compared to those who did not change their coffee drinking habits at all. The study was not able to confirm any notable relationships between subjects who constantly drink high levels of coffee or greater than two cups per day and rate of MCI compared to those who did not drink or rarely drank coffee.
"These findings from the Italian Longitudinal Study on Aging suggested that cognitively normal older individuals who never or rarely consumed coffee and those who increased their coffee consumption habits had a higher risk of developing MCI," summarized Vincenzo Solfrizzi, M.D., Ph.D., and Francesco Panza, M.D., Ph.D. of the University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy.
With this, regular and moderate coffee drinking habits may provide protection against MCI, boosting the results of previous studies that concluded the cognitive protection effects of caffeine in the long term.
The authors suggest that further investigation utilizing more sensitive findings, such as that of neuroimaging results, should be conducted so as to sufficiently explain the neuroprotective mechanisms of caffeine. Other recommendations include performing studies with longer follow-up time frames, taking into consideration complex and possible bias, to come up with diet-associated preventive measures against Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.
Photo: Toshihiro Oimatsu | Flickr
