A daily cup of coffee or tea may do more than wake you up—it could also help keep your brain sharp as you age.
New research tracking hundreds of thousands of people over decades suggests that moderate caffeine consumption is linked to a lower risk of developing dementia.
“Caffeine increases the brain’s activity and can accelerate the speed of messages between the brain and the body,” Jolene Knight, psychiatric nurse practitioner at Stony Brook Medicine’s Center of Excellence for Alzheimer’s disease, and not involved in the study, told The Epoch Times.
Caffeine Linked to 20 Percent Risk Reduction
The study, recently published in JAMA, followed 131,821 people for up to 43 years and found that those who drank two to three cups of caffeinated coffee or one to two cups of tea daily had a lower risk of developing dementia than those who drank little or no caffeine.
“When searching for possible dementia prevention tools, we thought something as prevalent as coffee may be a promising dietary intervention,” senior author Dr. Daniel Wang, associate scientist with the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Mass General Brigham, said in a statement.
Wang and his team tracked participants from two long-term studies of medical professionals, the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, with starting ages typically in their mid-40s to early 50s.
Higher Caffeine, Better Outcomes
During the study, 11,033 participants developed dementia, confirmed through medical records or death certificates. The findings held regardless of genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s or other dementias.
The study also looked at subjective cognitive decline—people’s perceptions that their memory and thinking skills are slipping. Those who drank more caffeine were less likely to report such issues. Among women over 70, those who drank more caffeine scored better on cognitive tests, indicating slower cognitive decline by about seven months.
Cognitive decline was assessed using cohort-specific questionnaires with yes-or-no responses covering general memory, executive function, attention, and visuospatial skills.