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Coffee and Tea Intake, Dementia Risk, and Cognitive Function

68 points by bookofjoe

by randusername

1 subcomments

Per [0] risk factors for dementia are "lower levels of education, high blood pressure, hearing impairment, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, and low social contact."
A recreational stimulant often taking in social settings seems to hit a lot of those.
The interesting one is blood pressure. Caffeine would spike it, but I have long wondered if "exercising" the vasculature with transients is a good idea and long-term elevation is the real killer. Like school fire drills.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementia

by marticode

4 subcomments

> higher caffeinated coffee intake was significantly associated with lower dementia risk (141 vs 330 cases per 100 000 person-years comparing the fourth [highest] quartile of consumption with the first [lowest] quartile; hazard ratio, 0.82 [95% CI, 0.76 to 0.89])
That's a very big difference.

by speak_plainly

0 subcomment

I have to remind myself to stay within the two to three cups a day recommendation.
There was a study in 2021 that found that drinking more than six cups of coffee a day was associated with a 53% increased risk of dementia and smaller total brain volume.
https://cardiologycoffee.com/blogs/news/new-study-says-coffe...

by ticulatedspline

0 subcomment

by overtone1000

0 subcomment

The only thing that feels better than a caffeine buzz is having my biases confirmed. Thanks, JAMA! Can I have mine with cream, sugar, and an hour of CME credit?

0 subcomment

by srean

1 subcomments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_III_of_Sweden%27s_coffe...
Needs an obligatory mention

by krzat

3 subcomments

> The most pronounced associated differences were observed with intake of approximately 2 to 3 cups per day of caffeinated coffee or 1 to 2 cups per day of tea.
Weird, tea is supposed to have half the caffeine of coffee.

by hiprob

0 subcomment

by tfirst

0 subcomment

The public communication around research like this is terrible.
> "2 to 3 Cups of Coffee a Day May Reduce Dementia Risk. But Not if It’s Decaf." - NYT
> "Daily cups of caffeinated coffee or mugs of tea may lower dementia risk." - Science News
"Reduce," "Lower" - this is all causal language for a study that is purely observational. The authors do a good job keeping causal language out of the paper, so why can't media do the same?
This leads to an environment where everyone knows that "correlation != causation," but almost nobody understands why.

by ETH_start

2 subcomments

I'm still spitballing here, but I speculate it's because caffeine increases calorie consumption*, reducing diabetes risk. Diabetes is a major risk factor for dementia.
*calorie expenditure