Can A Few Cups Of Coffee Or Tea Help Reduce Dementia Risk? Scientist Explain

Scientists examined over 131,000 healthy individuals, who consumed 2 -3 cups of caffeinated coffee or 1 - 2 cups of tea to conclude that theses common beverages can reduce dementia risk.

Dementia Risk: Guilty of sipping your morning brew for better health? Scientists claim in a new study that drinking a few cups of coffee or tea a day can help you reduce your risk of dementia, slow down cognitive decline and also preserve brain function.

2 - 3 Cups Of Coffee Or 1 - 2 Cups Of Tea

The research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Monday examined over 131,000 healthy individuals who consumed two to three cups of caffeinated coffee or one to two cups of tea. The findings revealed that people who added the aforementioned beverage to their diet regularly had a lower risk of termed neurocognitive disorders.

"When searching for possible dementia prevention tools, we thought something as prevalent as coffee may be a promising dietary intervention and our unique access to high-quality data through studies that have been going on for more than 40 years allowed us to follow through on that idea," senior author Daniel Wang, associate scientist and professor at Harvard Medical School, said. "While our results are encouraging, it's important to remember that the effect size is small and there are lots of important ways to protect cognitive function as we age. Our study suggests that caffeinated coffee or tea consumption can be one piece of that puzzle."

Dr. Yu Zhang, research trainee at Mass General Brigham in Boston and lead author of the study, said, "We are not recommending that people who don't drink coffee start drinking. We are just seeing that for people who already drink coffee, the results are really reassuring."

What Is Dementia?

Dementia is a medical condition that occurs when an individual's mental ability declines by damaging the parts of the brain, which is involved with learning, memory, decision-making and language. This neurocognitive illness is classified into three causes, i.e:

1. Primary causes include Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia, etc.
2. Secondary causes of dementia include brain dysfunction.
3. Reversible causes include vitamin deficiency or medication side effects.

Symptoms Of Dementia

According to Celveland Clinic, the symptoms of dementia can vary depending on the area of the brain that is damaged. Some of the most common symptoms of cognitive dementia include difficulty sharing thoughts, memory loss, problems following directions and trouble with language. Whereas behavioural and psychological dementia include:

1. Feeling restless
2. Anxiety
3. Mood swings
4. Disorientated
5. Feeling frustrated
6. Seeing or hearing things
7. Paranoid
8. Fidgeting
9. Insomnia

Healthcare professionals warn that depending on how the symptoms progress, doctors will describe your dementia stage, which includes:

1. Early-stage dementia (mild)
2. Middle-stage dementia (moderate)
3. Late-stage dementia (severe)

Explaining the signs and symptoms of each stage, Cleveland Clinic explains, "In the early stage, it affects your daily life, but not severely. You may notice some memory or thinking problems, but you can still do most self-care tasks at home, like dressing, bathing and making simple meals," "In the middle stage, thinking and daily tasks become harder. You may need reminders or prompts to complete them. In the late stage, you need daily help and may require full-time care. Most thinking skills are lost, and you need support with basic activities, like eating, bathing and getting dressed."

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