Coffee could fight off Alzheimer’s, study finds

20th April 2008

As little as one cup of coffee a day could protect the body’s blood-brain barrier from leakage, thought to be one of the main causes of neurological conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, a medical journal reported in mid-April.

Cholesterol in the diet is known to damage the blood-brain barrier—important for protecting the nervous system’s functions against contamination from diseases carried in the bloodstream.

The University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences study involved giving rabbits a high cholesterol diet and doses of 3 mg of caffeine (equivalent to one cup of coffee) a day. Researchers found that after 12 weeks those on the caffeine dose showed considerably less barrier damage than those not consuming the caffeine.

Researcher Jonathan Geiger was quoted in the Journal of Neuroinflammation as saying that, as high cholesterol levels were a risk factor for Alzheimer’s, it was important that regular caffeine consumption was shown to protect the barrier from cholesterol’s negative effects.