There is something in coffee which is useful protecting us against Alzheimer’s disease. We still don’t know what that exactly is but it is there among the ingredients of coffee. In a study conducted over mice it was found that coffee increases a growth factor in blood which is critical to fight Alzheimer’s disease. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of South Florida (USF).

The discovery is published in the online version of Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. Caffeinated coffee was found to protect against the disease which affects the memory.

Earlier studies on human beings have shown that caffeine or coffee in adults and old age people decreases the chances of having the disease.

Earlier studies at the USF suggested that it was probably the caffeine which provided the protection as it lowered the production of an abnormal protein known as beta-amyloid in the brain. Beta-amyloid is thought to be the cause of the disease.

The present study doesn’t exclude the importance of caffeine for the patients of the disease and for its prevention in others. The study says that the caffeinated coffee increases the blood level of a growth factor known as GCSF i.e. granulocyte colony stimulating factor. This factor falls in the patients of the disease. And it is reported now that the factor enhances the memory in Alzheimer’s mice.

The data of a clinical trial are being worked upon so as to establish the relation between this factor and the benefit to the people in earlier stage of the Alzheimer’s disease. The stage shows mild cognitive problems in the patients. The results of the clinical trial would be soon out.

“Caffeinated coffee provides a natural increase in blood GCSF levels,” USF neuroscientist Dr. Chuanhai Cao, who is a lead author of the study, said. “The exact way that this occurs is not understood. There is a synergistic interaction between caffeine and some mystery component of coffee that provides this beneficial increase in blood GCSF levels.”

The next task before the researchers is to identify the constituent, so that it can be promoted in the caffeinated drinks to benefit people.

In the study a comparison was also made between the effects of caffeinated, non-caffeinated drinks and coffee alone. The result was that the drip caffeinated coffee was best. Only drip coffee was used in the study so instant coffee couldn’t be told anything about.

The GCSF was found in studies with the patients of this disease to have a boosting effect on the memory. There are three ways suggested about how it works: The first is that the growth factor brings the stem cells from bone narrow to remove harmful beta-amyloid. The second way is by increasing the connections between the neurons of the brain. The third way is to increase the birth of new neurons in the brain. All these three ways are attributed to the growth factor.

“All three mechanisms could complement caffeine’s ability to suppress beta amyloid production in the brain” Dr. Cao said, “Together these actions appear to give coffee an amazing potential to protect against Alzheimer’s — but only if you drink moderate amounts of caffeinated coffee.”

Although the present study was performed on mice the researchers are confident that these are relevant to the human beings as well. They have clinical data and would have more soon in their support.

It is not for the first time that the importance of coffee is established for the patients of Alzheimer’s disease. It has already been established that it is useful to improve memory function in the patients. But now they have come to show us that it can also prevent the disease in the population. The coffee intake estimated to benefit people is some 4 to 5 cups every day. This amount is not harmful and is easily acceptable to the Americans. However the present average consumption of coffee in America is 1 to 1.5 cup of coffee.

Thus if the findings are refined with time in the anticipated way the coffee producers are going to be certainly see a boost in their industry.

“No synthetic drugs have yet been developed to treat the underlying Alzheimer’s disease process” said Dr. Gary Arendash, another lead author. “We see no reason why an inherently natural product such as coffee cannot be more beneficial and safer than medications, especially to protect against a disease that takes decades to become apparent after it starts in the brain.”

In researcher’s eyes if one starts taking this amount of coffee at an middle age i.e. in between 30 and 50 years it is better, but a later start is also helpful. “We are not saying that daily moderate coffee consumption will completely protect people from getting Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Cao said. “However, we do believe that moderate coffee consumption can appreciably reduce your risk of this dreaded disease or delay its onset.”

The researchers have found coffee to be the best among all other caffeinated drinks as other drinks have less caffeine in them. Besides, other ingredients are also helpful for boosting memory and other cognitive functions of the brain.  “The average American gets most of their daily antioxidants intake through coffee,” Dr. Cao said. “Coffee is high in anti-inflammatory compounds that also may provide protective benefits against Alzheimer’s disease.”

There have been many reports by the scientific community to cite the benefit of coffee in reducing the risk of several diseases of aging, including Parkinson’s disease. Other diseases in this list are stroke and Type II diabetes. Latest reports have also underlined its benfits in reducing chances of prostate cancer and breast cancer.

“Now is the time to aggressively pursue the protective benefits of coffee against Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Arendash said. “Hopefully, the coffee industry will soon become an active partner with Alzheimer’s researchers to find the protective ingredient in coffee and concentrate it in dietary sources.”

The importance of these findings becomes even greater for the countries like America which by the newer definitions of the disease have almost doubled its number of patients. The new guidelines in this regard include the individuals with no expressed symptoms to mild impairment to clear cognitive decline. And the number may touch the figure of 10 million. New generation is even more prone to the disease. It becomes imperative to pay attention on prevention of this disease in such countries.

“Because Alzheimer’s starts in the brain several decades before it is diagnosed, any protective therapy would obviously need to be taken for decades,” Dr. Cao said. “We believe moderate daily consumption of caffeinated coffee is the best current option for long-term protection against Alzheimer’s memory loss. Coffee is inexpensive, readily available, easily gets into the brain, appears to directly attack the disease process, and has few side-effects for most of us.”

And they have found none of the treatments to satisfy all these scales.

“Aside from coffee, two other lifestyle choices — physical and cognitive activity — appear to reduce the risk of dementia. Combining regular physical and mental exercise with moderate coffee consumption would seem to be an excellent multi-faceted approach to reducing risk or delaying Alzheimer’s,” Dr. Arendash said. “With pharmaceutical companies spending millions of dollars trying to develop drugs against Alzheimer’s disease, there may very well be an effective preventive right under our noses every morning — caffeinated coffee.”

NIH-designated Florida Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the State of Florida have funded this study.