Also, is there a difference between 3 cups of instant coffee vs 3 cups of espresso? Is one inherently better than the other?
My grandmother had dementia and drank a lot of coffee, but only instant - dripolator, espresso, etc didn’t really catch on in her generation.
My father has Alzheimer’s and has drunk 2 - 3 cups of coffee every day for at least 30 years, and probably his entire adult life. Never decaf, just regular.
My paternal grandmother had non-Alzheimer’s dementia and never drank coffee. My maternal grandmother has Alzheimer’s and had 1-2 cups of coffee every afternoon of her life.
Studies like this piss me off. It is a total red herring. I am not a doctor and all that but this kind of stuff is ridiculous.
Maybe some medical types can weigh in here for more informed input, but in my research (personal, not medical or work related) dementia has more to do with genetics than nutrition. If I recall correctly the most promising research has looked into calcium deposits that somehow block brain function.
The big question is how the calcium finds itself in the brain in a harmful form.
I’m not sure of the calcium content of coffee (sans cream/milk of course) but I assume it is pretty low.
Fraternal Grandfather: Half a pot coffee/day. Died 86 due to Alzheimers.
Fraternal Grandmother: 4-5 cups of tea per day. Died 78 due to Alzheimers.
Maternal Grandfather: don’t really recall his coffee intake but he had history of blood clots due to cholesterol (I remember him having his cereal with orange juice instead of milk) and a brain clot ended up getting to him.
Maternal Grandmother: pot of coffee per week (literally she makes a pot on Monday and reheats it throughout the week) and glass of bourbon every night. She is 94, can barely see, and will still whip your ass at Scrabble, Cribbage, Bridge, Hearts, or any game of poker you can dream up and would probably be kicked off Jeopardy! for winning too much money.
OK. I’m off to go have two glasses of red wine so I don’t get heart disease.
As defined in that article, my mother-in-law would have been a moderate coffee drinker. She died as a result of Alzheimer’s complications in 2005.
My father currently seems to be suffering from some form of dementia, although the jury is still out as to whether it is Alzheimer’s or something else. His older brother (now deceased) had severe dementia at the end of his life. Their sister who is between them in age seems not to have any symptoms at this time. Their mother also had severe dementia at the end of her life.
My father, uncle, and aunt would all be light to moderate coffee drinkers although I know for a fact they all drink instant (regular) coffee almost exclusively, don’t know if the form of coffee is taken into account in any of the studies. I have no idea about my grandmother’s coffee consumption.
I share other’s skepticism about the conclusions drawn from this study. For one thing coffee drinking could just be a marker for some unknown factor that is the actual cause of the pattern seen.
I finally tracked down the citation but no luck on getting the article:
The study was of 1409 people and 48 of them had Alzheimer’s at the end, so it wasn’t a large study.
Me, but I don’t drink coffee. Do drink a lot of caffeine in the form of diet colas though.
I haven’t been told to stop.
Actually was encouraged to drink it following my lumbar puncture.
Have you gone to www.alz.org?
Q