Caffeine Intake and Dementia Risk—A Health Benefit From One of Life’s Simple Pleasures?

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In this issue of the Journal of Gerontology, Driscoll and colleagues (1) report on the potential beneficial effects of caffeine consumption on dementia incidence in the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS). This topic is of great interest to the field of dementia, through better understanding of the underlying biologic mechanisms, as well as to the general public, as a simple dietary prevention for this common and dreaded disease. The failure of the field to identify drugs that cure or effectively treat dementia places great emphasis on diet and other modifiable risk factors that may prevent the disease from developing. In this prospective analyses of 6,467 women aged 65 years and older who participated in the Women’s Health Initiative randomized trial of hormone therapy, self-reported caffeine consumption >261mg per day was associated with a 36% reduction in the risk of incident dementia (HR = 0.74, CI [0.56, 0.99]) over 10 years of follow-up. The equivalent in terms of U.S. consumption patterns would be 2 to 3 8-oz cups of coffee per day, 5 to 6 8-oz cups of black tea, or 7 to 8 12-oz cans of cola.