Mild cognitive decline represents the decline of cognitive abilities such as thinking skills and memory and it is considered a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease.
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The participants found no clear link between coffee drinking and MCI frequency among those who drank “high” amounts of java (over two cups daily).
“These findings from the Italian Longitudinal Study on Aging suggested that cognitively normal older individuals who never or rarely consumed coffee and those who increased their coffee consumption habits had a higher risk of developing MCI”. The new findings have been in keeping with the previous researchers proving that regular coffee consumption has neuroprotective effects against MCI and dementia, particularly among older categories of population. However, scientists have concluded, based on the recent findings, that people who have a daily intake of more than two cups of coffee and those, who never drink coffee are more likely to develop MCI. But when inconsistent coffee takers took less than a couple of coffee every had only one and a half time higher risk of MCI when compared to constant coffee drinkers that limited their quantity to not less or more one cup daily, according to The Financial Express.
There are several different explanations behind coffee’s neuroprotective features.
Adenosine is a neuromodulator that operates via the most abundant inhibitory adenosine A1 receptors (A1Rs) and the less abundant, but widespread, facilitatory A2ARs. Moreover, while central A1Rs are down-regulated by chronic noxious situations, the brain neuroprotective effect of A2AR antagonists is maintained in chronic noxious brain conditions without observable peripheral effects, thus justifying the interest of A2AR antagonists as novel protective agents in neurodegenerative diseases such as AD.
Participants whose coffee consumption increased over time were also around 1.5 times more likely to develop MCI than those whose coffee consumption remained stable – no more or less than one cup of coffee each day.
The researchers say further studies are warranted to determine what drives coffee’s protective effect against MCI.
Caffeine might reduce the damage caused by a protein fragment which accumulates in the brains of those who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, that is beta-amyloid.
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So the theme from these results (and the theme emerging across coffee research overall) is that steady, moderate consumption gets the best results. “Larger studies with longer follow-up periods should be encouraged, addressing other potential bias and confounding sources, so hopefully opening new ways for diet-related prevention of dementia and AD”.
