A few cups of coffee a day may be all that is needed to reverse the effects of Alzheimer�s disease, new research suggests. Scientists have uncovered powerful evidence that caffeine not only helps to stave off the disease but can treat it.
A few cups of coffee a day may be all that is needed to reverse the effects of Alzheimer's disease, new research suggests.
Scientists have uncovered powerful evidence that caffeine not only helps to stave off the disease but can treat it.
They hope to follow up the initial results from animal experiments with human trials, in a bid to find an effective treatment for Alzheimer's, which affects around 700,000 people in the UK, a figure expected to double by 2025.
US neuroscientist Dr Gary Arendash, who led the research, said: "The new findings provide evidence that caffeine could be a viable treatment' for established Alzheimer's disease, and not simply a protective strategy.
"That's important because caffeine is a safe drug for most people. It easily enters the brain, and it appears to directly affect the disease process."
A key aspect of Alzheimer's is sticky clumps of abnormal protein in the brain called beta amyloid plaques.
Mice with a rodent equivalent of the disease showed a 50% reduction in levels of amyloid protein in their brains after scientists spiked their drinking water with caffeine.
The change was reflected in their behaviour as the mice developed better memories and quicker thinking. Dr Arendash's team studied 55 mice genetically engineered to develop dementia symptoms identical to those of Alzheimer's.
Humans receiving an equivalent dose for their body weight would be consuming 500 milligrams of caffeine - or five eight-ounce cups of ordinary coffee - a day; or 14 cups of tea, or 20 cola drinks.
At the end of the two-month study, the caffeine-drinking mice performed much better on memory tests than mice given only water. Their memories were as sharp as those of healthy older mice without dementia.
The scientists found that when the mice drank caffeinated water their blood levels of beta amyloid protein quickly fell, and more importantly, the same effect occurred in the brain: almost half the abnormal beta amyloid protein had vanished after two months.
Dr Huntington Potter, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Centre (ADRC) in Tampa, Florida, where the study was carried out, said: "These are some of the most promising Alzheimer's mouse experiments ever done, showing that caffeine rapidly reduces beta amyloid protein in the blood, an effect that is mirrored in the brain, and this reduction is linked to cognitive benefit.
"Our goal is to obtain the funding needed to translate the therapeutic discoveries in mice into well-designed clinical trials."
Other work by the same investigators indicated that caffeine reduced biological processes needed for the production of beta amyloid. It also appeared to suppress inflammation-linked changes that contributed to a build-up of the plaques.
The Florida scientists became interested in caffeine's effect on Alzheimer's several years ago after Portuguese researchers found that sufferers drank less coffee than people without the disease.
Since then several studies have suggested that moderate caffeine consumption protects against memory decline during normal ageing.
The new research was reported in two studies published online today in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
Dr Arendash said both were carefully controlled to isolate the effects of caffeine on memory from other factors, such as diet and exercise.
He pointed out that for most individuals, consuming 500 milligrams of caffeine a day would present no problems. But he said people with high blood pressure or women who are pregnant should avoid too much caffeine.
