Drinking Coffee Can Save the Brain

While we endlessly sit there sipping our cups of coffee (and tea!), marking essays, we may actually be protecting ourselves from developing dementia in the future.

Recent research has found that caffeine boosts the power of a brain enzyme, NMNAT2, which protects us against dementia.

Currently, 47.5 million people worldwide have dementia, and this is set do increase by 2050, due to the ageing population. However, researchers claim that the consumption of caffeine can slow this increase.

Professor Lu (Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences) found that the enzyme (NMNAT2) serves a protective function to guard neurons from stress and to stop the misfolding of proteins known as ‘tau’- which accumulate in the brain as ‘plaques’ due to ageing.

They conducted their study on mice, screening over 1,280 compounds and found that 24 compounds had the potential to increase the production of NMNAT2 in the brain, in particular caffeine. Researchers explain that the study of compounds can lead to the understanding of their roles in the body, providing new insights into how they may contribute to dementia.

Therefore, is it possible to stop our brain cells from degenerating by simply drinking coffee?