Caffeine may slow cognitive decline in older women
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Several cups of coffee or tea per day seem to slow the loss of brain cells in elderly women, but caffeine has no effect on dementia itself, according to results of a new study.
Dr. Karen Ritchie, a scientist at INSERM U888 in Montpellier, France, and her associates followed 2,820 men and 4,197 women, age 65 or older, and free of dementia. The team assessed the participants’ caffeine consumption in terms of 100-milligram “units”; one cup of coffee was considered to contain 100 mg of caffeine and tea, 50 mg.
Caffeine consumption was relatively stable over time. At the start of the study, 16 percent of women and 13 percent of men drank more than 3 units per day, the team reports in the medical journal Neurology.
After 4 years, women with high rates of caffeine consumption showed less decline in verbal retrieval, and to a lesser extent in memory, than women who drank less tea or coffee.
The decline slowed by 9 percent for one or two caffeine units per day, and by 34 percent with consumption at least three units per day, report Ritchie and her colleagues.
There appeared to be no effect of caffeine consumption on cognitive function among men.
Also, caffeine intake at the outset of the study was not associated with the subsequent occurrence dementia. Ritchie’s group therefore thinks that caffeine “may only be useful in attenuating mild forms of cognitive decline.”
SOURCE: Neurology, August 7, 2007.
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