Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Drink another cup of coffee and savor your mental health?


According to an article in yesterday's New York Times - "Coffee Linked to Lower Dementia Risk" - a study that tracked coffee consumption in a group of 1,409 middle-aged men and women found that drinking 3 to 5 cups of coffee a day might lower a person's risk of developing dementia. Dementia is defined as the loss of mental processing ability, including communication, abstract thinking, judgment and physical abilities. It affects everyday living through short-term and/or long-term memory loss, disorientation, difficulties with money and math, etc.

The men and women in this research study group who drank this amount of coffee over an average of 21 years were 65% less likely to develop dementia than those who drank 2 cups or less per day. There's also an apparent, but not statistically significant reduction in risk, for those who drink five or more cups a day.

If you drink two cups a day, like I do, you might want to consider increasing your consumption by that extra cup of Peet's or Starbucks. However, if you do not currently drink coffee, according to this study, there's no evidence that starting to drink coffee will have any protective effect.

Earlier studies have suggested that drinking coffee may also reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes and/or Parkinson's disease. Of course, the possibility of error exists because study participants may "innacurately" recall how much coffee they consumed over the course of many years. Oh, well...

Just in case, I'm ordering an extra cup of Java today.

(Pictured is the Peet's coffee shop in downtown Portland.)

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