Perk up your brain.

Back-to-back studies published online today in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, show caffeine significantly decreased abnormal levels of the protein linked to Alzheimer's disease, both in the brains and in the blood of mice exhibiting symptoms of the disease. Both studies build upon previous research by the Florida ADRC group showing that caffeine in early adulthood prevented the onset of memory problems in mice bred to develop Alzheimer's symptoms in old age.

"The new findings provide evidence that caffeine could be a viable 'treatment' for established Alzheimer's disease, and not simply a protective strategy," said lead author Gary Arendash, PhD, a USF neuroscientist with the Florida ADRC. "That's important because caffeine is a safe drug for most people, it easily enters the brain, and it appears to directly affect the disease process." . .

"These are some of the most promising Alzheimer's mouse experiments ever done showing that caffeine rapidly reduces beta amyloid protein in the blood, an effect that is mirrored in the brain, and this reduction is linked to cognitive benefit," Potter said. "Our goal is to obtain the funding needed to translate the therapeutic discoveries in mice into well-designed clinical trials."

Arendash and his colleagues became interested in caffeine's potential for treating Alzheimer's several years ago, after a Portuguese study reported that people with Alzheimer's had consumed less caffeine over the last 20 years than people without the neurodegenerative disease. Since then, several uncontrolled clinical studies have reported moderate caffeine consumption may protect against memory decline during normal aging. The highly controlled studies using Alzheimer's mice allowed researchers to isolate the effects of caffeine on memory from other lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise, Arendash said. . .

In addition, the brains of the caffeinated mice showed nearly a 50-percent reduction in levels of beta amyloid, a substance forming the sticky clumps of plaques that are a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Other experiments by the same investigators indicate that caffeine appears to restore memory by reducing both enzymes needed to produce beta amyloid. The researchers also suggest that caffeine suppresses inflammatory changes in the brain that lead to an overabundance of beta amyloid.

Since caffeine improved the memory of mice with pre-existing Alzheimer's, the researchers were curious to know if it might further boost the memory of non-demented (normal) mice administered caffeine from young adulthood through old age. It did not. Control mice given regular drinking water throughout their lives performed as well on behavioral tests in old age as normal mice who received long-term caffeine treatment, Arendash said. "This suggests that caffeine will not increase memory performance above normal levels. Rather, it appears to benefit those destined to develop Alzheimer's disease."

The researchers do not know if an amount lower than the 500 mg. daily caffeine intake received by the Alzheimer's mice would be effective, Arendash said. For most individuals, however, this moderate level of caffeine intake poses no adverse health effects, according to both the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences. Nonetheless, Arendash said, individuals with high blood pressure or those who are pregnant should limit their daily caffeine intake.

If larger, more rigorous clinical studies confirm that caffeine staves off Alzheimer's in humans, as it does in mice, this benefit would be substantial, Arendash said. Alzheimer's disease attacks nearly half of Americans age 85 and older, and Alzheimer's and other dementias triple healthcare costs for those age 65 and older, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

There are also studies that claim that nicotine is a useful drug for treatment of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's etc. which are all associated with insulin resistance. The incidence of such diseases has greatly increased since the 1980s. I always wondered if this was an artifact of reporting rather than an actual change in incidence. They have become fashionable diseases and so are diagnosed more often.

But perhaps it is a result of changes in behavior as people have aged and started taking better care of themselves by quitting the use of nicotine and cutting back or eliminating the use of caffeine. They are smoke and caffeine free, but their minds and bodies are not improved. "If the thunder don't get you then the lightning will."