Caffeine and Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease is a type of dementia that primarily affects elderly people. The brain of an Alzheimer's patient is characterized by an accumulation of plaques containing beta-amyloid protein. Research indicates caffeine has significant effects on these plaques.

Physical Risk Factors

• Alzheimer's disease has genetic factors, and age strongly correlates with disease incidence. About 10 percent of people over age 65 have the disease, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), and nearly half of people over 85 years old have it.

Behavioral Risk Factors

• Alzheimer's behavioral risk factors include heavy alcohol drinking and heavy smoking, as noted by research presented at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting and reported by the Washington Post.

Caffeine and Cognition Effects

• Older mice bred to develop signs of Alzheimer's disease that were fed 500 milligrams of caffeine daily, equivalent to five cups of coffee, showed improved performance on cognitive tests after two months, in a study published in the July 2009 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Effects on the Brain

• The brains of the mice that were fed caffeine also showed a nearly 50 percent decrease in beta-amyloid levels.

Prevention

• A study published in a 2002 issue of the European Journal of Neurology found that caffeine intake during midlife was associated with a significantly lower risk for Alzheimer's disease.