Coffee Can Reduce the Risk of Alzheimer's 242
Amenacier writes "Recent studies by Finnish and Swedish researchers have shown that drinking moderate amounts of coffee can reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease in people. The reason for this is as yet unknown, although it has been hypothesized that the high levels of antioxidants found in coffee may play a role in preventing dementia and Alzheimer's. Alternatively, some studies have shown that coffee can protect nerves, which may help prevent Alzheimer's. Other studies have shown that coffee may also help to protect against diabetes, another disease which has been shown to have links to Alzheimer's disease. However, researchers warn against drinking too much coffee, as 3 cups or more may cause hallucinations."
Re:This reminds me... (Score:4, Informative)
that's certainly a plausible explanation. i think the only way to know for sure is to determine the exact pharmacokinetics of the various active compounds found in alcoholic beverages. otherwise, you're just identifying health correlations of various lifestyle choices, which, of course, can be caused by any number of a vast and complex set of factors.
this is somewhat similar to the misconceptions held by a large segment of the public and medical community regarding the health effects of narcotics like heroin. heroin/diacetylmorphine is an exogenous opioid just like morphine, codeine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. in potency it has a MEDD factor of somewhere between morphine and oxycodone (the active ingredient of OxyContin). and while the process of psychological addiction is highly complex, and there is still much to be learned about it, the general pharmacology and mechanism of action of opiates like morphine and diacetylmorphine are well understood.
however, after drug prohibition went into effect and the opiate-using demographic shifted from well to do upper-class whites like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas De Quincy, and Edgar Allen Poe, as well as other normal everyday people, to lower-class minorities and the poor/homeless, people began associating opiate usage--and especially heroin abuse--with a wide variety of detrimental health effects, including weight-loss, tooth decay, anemia, and general poor health.
this public perception was shaped by prohibitionist propaganda, what was portrayed in the media, and reinforced by the masses of drug addicts living in the streets. however, when physicians actually conducted research into the health effects of heroin use, they found that it caused none of these effects in normal healthy individuals. instead, they discovered that almost all of the negative health effects commonly attributed to heroin use was caused by concurrent use of other more physically harmful substances (like crack/cocaine/meth) or some other lifestyle factor, such as homelessness, poverty and years of living on the streets--and the resultant malnutrition, poor dental hygiene, and lack of medical care.
through empirical research it was discovered that heroin, just like any other opiate, has very little toxicity and isn't particularly harmful to one's body. it's not neurotoxic like alcohol, PCP, and stimulants such as cocaine & meth; it's not cardiotoxic like cocaine, meth, caffeine and other stimulants; and it's not hepatotoxic (liver-damaging) like alcohol and OTC painkillers such as APAP/acetaminophen (a.k.a. Tylenol)--which is the leading cause of liver damage & acute liver failure in western nations.
in fact, as a CNS depressant and hypotensive, heroin actually lower's one's blood pressure and can be therapeutic (or at least attenuate the cardiotoxicity of stimulants). instead of making people age faster the way that meth/coke/crack does, heroin abuse actually slows down aging, and oftentimes chronic users who start using at a young age can look like they haven't hit puberty even as they reach adulthood.
of course, since it's not socially acceptable like tobacco or alcohol use, and opiate dependence is considered a crime in our society, those that can lead functional lives on opiates keep their habit to themselves. so even though there are many doctors who are closet morphine addicts, or businessmen and lawyers who are pill poppers, it's generally the stereotypical gaunt & destitute-looking homeless heroin addicts that are the most visible to the public and consequently receive a disproportionate amount of media attention, leading to erroneous conclusions being drawn about the effects of chronic opiate use.
Re:Seriously..... (Score:3, Informative)
> what's the opposite of coffee?
Ginger. Coffee is a basal vasoconstrictor, and ginger is a vasodilator.
So coffee lowers the blood flow to the brain, and ginger increases it. Don't take both at once unless you enjoy headaches.
Re:This reminds me... (Score:2, Informative)
"If one glass of wine is getting you drunk, you should see a doctor immediately."
Or perhaps first try a smaller glass.
Caffeine gave me scary tremors (Score:3, Informative)
I can vouch for the dangers of too much caffeine.
I accidentally started drinking a lot more caffeine than usual, and after a while, I started having worse and worse tremors. My hands would shake. The day I went to see my doctor about it, I had to concentrate furiously to get my hand steady enough to sign my signature at the front desk.
We didn't know what was going on. I was certain it wasn't the coffee I was drinking, because coffee had never been a problem for me before. My doctor gave me some tests, and told me he was sure it wasn't anything scary (Parkinson's disease or something). He recommended I start taking magnesium supplements.
I took the magnesium and it helped right away! Then over time the tremors started to get worse again. I was starting to get scared.
My doctor sent me to a neurologist. I decided to cut out all coffee for a week or so before visiting the neurologist; I was still certain coffee wasn't the cause of my problems, but I figured it would be helpful to remove one variable from the equation. After being tested in various ways while hooked up to cool machines, I was ruled not to have anything scary. More importantly, after a week with no coffee, I was starting to feel a lot better.
So I decided to stay off the coffee. I had some bad withdrawal symptoms (headache, etc.) and took a lot of aspirin and ibuprofen. (And around this time I started to get bad tinnitus [wikipedia.org] on top of everything else!)
Now I am mostly off caffeine. I sometimes have a single cup of caffeinated coffee. The tremors have passed and I'm grateful that my symptoms are gone. (The tinnitus stopped when I stopped taking the aspirin and ibuprofen.)
An important thing I want to tell you: I never drank a cup of coffee and then immediately had my hands start shaking. I had a gradual onset of hand tremors and it was chronic, with no obvious increase right after I drank coffee. This convinced me the tremors could not be caused by the coffee, but now I am convinced that they were.
You may be wondering how I could accidentally start overdosing on caffeine. Well, I started working in a building where the coffee was awful (Farmer Brothers commercial coffee service), so I started making my own coffee using an Aeropress [aerobie.com]. This is an excellent coffee maker (Dan likes it! [dansdata.com]), and I still use it and recommend it. But when I first got it, I was using caffeinated coffee, and I was trying to make "doppio ristretto" portions for myself, so I was using two scoops of finely ground espresso beans. I now believe that one AeroPress scoop of coffee makes a double shot, so I was effectively drinking four espresso shots worth of caffeine; and I usually drank two of these per day. So while I thought I was drinking 4 espresso shots worth of caffeine, I suspect I was drinking 8 shots worth, possibly even a little more.
As the saying goes, the dose makes the poison. I drank reasonable portions of caffeine for years and didn't notice any ill effects at all; it was only when I drank too much that I had the scary tremors.
If you get hand tremors, I do suggest you cut out all caffeine for a while and see if it helps.
steveha
Re:Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:3, Informative)
No matter what your mother-in-law says, you're not an insect. It is an insecticide of sorts and is a useful way for the plant to prevent insect problems. Caffeine has very different effects on humans.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffiene [wikipedia.org]
And better yet, read: The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug