But first some comments of my own:
As many of you know my mother is slipping in Alzheimer's haze. She is 70 and the gentle fade to black has been progressing for more then five years. Her father had exactly the same experience and the possibility that I am the third in line for this tragedy has been something I have been aware of for many years. Both of my brothers have their own, mostly unknown, genetic pools to wonder about, but it seems I may be seeing the future in my mothers increasingly vacant eyes.
So, several months ago I was discussing these things with a biology professor here at PUC. His immediate, lengthy and heartfelt response was, " Craig, you need to catch up with current research. Caffeine is being shown to have a very positive effect on the brain in the same areas of the brain affected by Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. " I began what has become lengthy and rather thorough research on the relationship between tea/coffee consumption and disease.
I started out reviewing the medical evidence for harm/benefit from caffeine and then moved deeply into the history of "why are Adventist opposed to tea and coffee"? It has been a very interesting journey which has ended with me changing my caffeine view.
I am committed to doing "almost anything" to reduce my chance for early dementia. I am consuming at least 200 mg of caffeine each and every day. This seems to be the minimum, over years and years of use, to show a positive benefit on the brain. I am primarily using home brewed tea. Usually cheap stuff like Lipton tea. I drink either tea or coffee, always sugar free, from about 8AM until about 2PM, total consumption is 20-24 oz each day. This should equal about 200 mg caffeine if it is tea and about 300 mg plus if it is coffee.
Since I started, I have lost over ten pounds of body weight and I have spent many weeks adjusting to caffeine, balancing caffeine and the clock, and learning that the body does adjust to caffeine and over time the "buzz" response of the body is lowered due to increased tolerance.
Will it save me? Will it change the world?
I would certainly love to hear feedback from the list. I particularly interested in learning of possible negative effects. I have not been able to find much genuine evidence regarding negative effects of caffeine. And I do place credence in pictures of spider webs after giving the spider caffeine. All that shows is that spiders can not handle their coffee. Neither can slugs and snails by the way, pour coffee and coffee grounds around your precious roses and slugs and snails will vanish.
So here is an excerpt:
Can drinking coffee/tea affect your risk of dementia?
There have been suggestions that caffeine might delay or prevent Alzheimer’s disease. However, research has involved only small numbers of people and often relied on their memory of how much coffee they drank much earlier in their lives. It is hoped that current research will yield a clearer picture of the impact of known caffeine consumption on dementia risk.
What the research tells us
There are three effects of caffeine that might enable it to protect against or reverse brain changes related to dementia. Firstly, it can stimulate brain cells to take in choline. This is the building block they need to make acetylcholine, the brain chemical, or neurotransmitter, that is reduced in dementia.
Secondly, caffeine interferes with the action of another neurotransmitter called adenosine. It has been suggested that this action, or the 'knock-on' effect on other neurotransmitters, might be beneficial in Alzheimer’s disease.
Finally, chemicals related to caffeine seem to be able to damp down the activity of 'housekeeping' cells in the brain, called glia. A recent review of one such chemical, propentofylline, concluded that it might benefit cognition, global function and activities of daily living in people with Alzheimer's disease and/or vascular dementia, but further information is awaited.
While glia are important in keeping the brain free of dead and injured cells, their activity can sometimes be too thorough, and can damage surrounding brain areas. Whether caffeine can keep glial activity in check in such a way that it could prevent dementia is not known.
Should I start drinking more coffee/tea?
It is certainly too soon to say that our morning coffee or afternoon cup of tea is more than a pleasant pick-me-up.
No comments:
Post a Comment