Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant. It boosts alertness, energy, and metabolism. Consuming too much of it can lead to insomnia, jitters, anxiety, rapid heart rate, and gastrointestinal issues. Many people avoid caffeine entirely, despite the fact that moderate amounts generally don’t have ill effects for most people. There have also been long-term benefits of caffeine observed including lower risks of type 2 diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
The results of a decades-long study of nearly 132,000 people have recently been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The key finding is that individuals who drink two to three cups of coffee or one to two cups of tea each day had a lower risk of developing dementia compared with those who didn’t consume caffeinated beverages.
The authors didn’t recommend that people who don’t drink coffee should start. They are mostly saying that for people who already drink coffee, the results are really reassuring.
The study showed that after adjusting for other lifestyle factors and health issues that could influence dementia risk, people who drank moderate amounts of coffee had an 18% lower risk of developing dementia than those who didn’t. Tea drinkers had a 14% lower risk.
Other researchers evaluating the study point out that caffeine might not be the sole contributing factor to the brain benefits. Coffee contains hundreds of bioactive compounds and it is possible that various compounds interacting with each other and with the caffeine itself are a factor. There are many other things that affect the risk of dementia, so drinking coffee is not a magic cure-all for brain health.
