Post
by johnthomasmacdonald » Sun Dec 30, 2012 10:30 pm
chicago granny wrote: "BTW, I think sleep apnea patients should wean themselves off all sources of caffeine. My husband read this in this forum some years ago and we are both better off for saying "No" to caffeine."
Coffee gives jolt to life span
Java consumption linked to slightly increased longevity and the caffeine in coffee has been shown to delay Alzheimer's
It’s the news that coffee addicts have been waiting for: Drinking several cups of coffee every day may help you live longer. A study of more than 400,000 people finds that drinking coffee may reduce the risk of death from heart disease, stroke and even infections, researchers report in the May 17 New England Journal of Medicine.
Scientists have long puzzled over the notion that a stimulant could provide a health benefit. “There’s been a concern for a long time” that coffee could even be detrimental, says study coauthor Neal Freedman, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md. “Our results might provide some reassurance for long-term coffee drinkers.”
Since the study volunteers weren’t randomly assigned to drink coffee or not, the research has the limitations of being observational in nature. But with data from 402,260 participants, the results are “very powerful” and unlikely to be superseded by another coffee study anytime soon, says Roy Ziegelstein, a cardiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. “This might be as good as it gets,” he says.
Freedman and his colleagues analyzed data provided by men and women who completed a detailed questionnaire that included information about coffee intake as part of a medical study in the mid-1990s. The researchers excluded people who had previously had cancer, heart disease or some other serious illness and recorded the remaining volunteers’ mortality status through 2008 by checking death records.
During a median follow-up of 13.6 years, people who drank two or more cups of coffee per day were 10 to 16 percent less likely to have died than nondrinkers. A single cup a day provided less apparent benefit. Women seemed to get more out of drinking ample java than men; women who drank six cups of coffee per day had a 15 percent reduced risk of death compared with nondrinkers, while men consuming that much had only a 10 percent reduced risk.
More than two cups a day seemed to offer some protection against death due to heart disease, respiratory ailments and diabetes, while four or more cups a day imparted apparent benefits against stroke and infections.
The researchers accounted for differences between coffee drinkers and nondrinkers such as body mass, smoking status and the consumption of alcohol, red meat, white meat, vitamins, fruits and vegetables.
More good news for people who can't function in the morning without a cup of coffee.
Researchers from the University of South Florida and University of Miami have found that higher caffeine consumption -- a big source being coffee -- is linked with a delayed onset of Alzheimer's disease, even in older adults who already have mild cognitive impairment (thought to be an early sign of Alzheimer's and/or dementia).
"These intriguing results suggest that older adults with mild memory impairment who drink moderate levels of coffee -- about 3 cups a day -- will not convert to Alzheimer's disease -- or at least will experience a substantial delay before converting to Alzheimer's," study researcher Dr. Chuanhai Cao, a neuroscientist at USF, said in a statement.
Researchers conducted the study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, on 124 people ages 65 to 88; some of the study participants had mild cognitive impairment.
They found that the study participants who went on to develop dementia over the next two to four years had 51 percent lower blood caffeine levels than people whose MCI did not progress over that period of time. The researchers said that high blood caffeine levels were a sign that a person regularly consumed caffeine.
Researchers cautioned that the study doesn't mean drinking coffee is guaranteed to save someone from Alzheimer's, but rather coffee may help to lower the risk of Alzheimer's.