Alzheimer's, Dementia & Mental Health
Caffeine Miraculously Restores Memory in Old Mice
with Alzheimer’s Disease Symptoms
Caffeine treatment removed the beta
amyloid plaques from the brains of the Alzheimer's mice. Photo:
Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center |
Coffee, the favorite drink of senior citizens,
sure to get more popular with discovery of the memory recovery power of
five cups a day that reduces beta-amyloid protein in blood
July 6, 2009 – Old mice, bred to develop symptoms
of Alzheimer’s disease, totally regained their memory loss when given a
dose of caffeine that was equivalent to five cups of coffee a day.
Back-to-back studies published online today in the Journal of
Alzheimer's Disease, show caffeine significantly decreased abnormal
levels of the protein linked to Alzheimer's disease.
The studies show the AD related protein decreased
in both in the brains and in the blood of mice with symptoms of AD.
The research group has also determined that
caffeine administered to elderly non-demented humans quickly affects
their blood levels of β-amyloid, just as it did in the Alzheimer's mice.
Both studies build upon previous work by University
of South Florida researchers at the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research
Center showing that caffeine in early adulthood prevented the onset of
memory problems in mice bred to develop Alzheimer's symptoms in old age.
"The new findings provide evidence that caffeine
could be a viable 'treatment' for established Alzheimer's disease, and
not simply a protective strategy," said lead author Gary Arendash, PhD,
a USF neuroscientist with the Florida ADRC.
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"That's important because caffeine is a safe drug
for most people, it easily enters the brain, and it appears to directly
affect the disease process."
Based on these promising findings in mice,
researchers at the Florida ADRC and Byrd Alzheimer's Center at USF hope
to begin human trials to evaluate whether caffeine can benefit people
with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer's disease, said
Huntington Potter, PhD, director of the Florida ADRC and an investigator
for the caffeine studies.
"These are some of the most promising Alzheimer's
mouse experiments ever done showing that caffeine rapidly reduces beta
amyloid protein in the blood, an effect that is mirrored in the brain,
and this reduction is linked to cognitive benefit," Potter said. "Our
goal is to obtain the funding needed to translate the therapeutic
discoveries in mice into well-designed clinical trials."
Arendash and his colleagues became interested in
caffeine's potential for treating Alzheimer's several years ago, after a
Portuguese study reported that people with Alzheimer's had consumed less
caffeine over the last 20 years than people without the
neurodegenerative disease.
Since then, several uncontrolled clinical studies
have reported moderate caffeine consumption may protect against memory
decline during normal aging. The highly controlled studies using
Alzheimer's mice allowed researchers to isolate the effects of caffeine
on memory from other lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise,
Arendash said.
The just-published Florida ADRC study included 55
mice genetically altered to develop memory problems mimicking
Alzheimer's disease as they aged. After behavioral tests confirmed the
mice were exhibiting signs of memory impairment at age 18 to 19 months –
about age 70 in human years – the researchers gave half the mice
caffeine in their drinking water.
The other half got plain water.
The Alzheimer's mice received the equivalent of
five 8-oz. cups of regular coffee a day. That's the same amount of
caffeine – 500 milligrams -- as contained in two cups of specialty
coffees like Starbucks, or 14 cups of tea, or 20 soft drinks.
At the end of the two-month study, the caffeinated
mice performed much better on tests measuring their memory and thinking
skills. In fact, their memories were identical to normal aged mice
without dementia. The Alzheimer's mice drinking plain water continued to
do poorly on the tests.
In addition, the brains of the caffeinated mice
showed nearly a 50-percent reduction in levels of beta amyloid, a
substance forming the sticky clumps of plaques that are a hallmark of
Alzheimer's disease. Other experiments by the same investigators
indicate that caffeine appears to restore memory by reducing both
enzymes needed to produce beta amyloid.
The researchers also suggest that caffeine
suppresses inflammatory changes in the brain that lead to an
overabundance of beta amyloid.
Since caffeine improved the memory of mice with
pre-existing Alzheimer's, the researchers were curious to know if it
might further boost the memory of non-demented (normal) mice
administered caffeine from young adulthood through old age. It did not.
Control mice given regular drinking water
throughout their lives performed as well on behavioral tests in old age
as normal mice who received long-term caffeine treatment, Arendash said.
"This suggests that caffeine will not increase
memory performance above normal levels. Rather, it appears to benefit
those destined to develop Alzheimer's disease."
The researchers do not know if an amount lower than
the 500 mg. daily caffeine intake received by the Alzheimer's mice would
be effective, Arendash said.
For most individuals, however, this moderate level
of caffeine intake poses no adverse health effects, according to both
the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences.
Nonetheless, Arendash said, individuals with high blood pressure or
those who are pregnant should limit their daily caffeine intake.
If larger, more rigorous clinical studies confirm
that caffeine staves off Alzheimer's in humans, as it does in mice, this
benefit would be substantial, Arendash said.
Alzheimer's disease attacks nearly half of
Americans age 85 and older, and Alzheimer's and other dementias triple
healthcare costs for those age 65 and older, according to the
Alzheimer's Association.
Background Information
In addition to the Florida ADRC, Byrd Alzheimer's
Center and Eric Pfeiffer Suncoast Alzheimer's and Gerontology Center at
USF, researchers from the Bay Pines VA Healthcare System; Saitama
Medical University, Saitama, Japan; and Washington University School of
Medicine, St. Louis, collaborated on the research. The studies were
supported by grants to investigators in the Florida ADRC, a statewide
project sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and housed at the
University of South Florida's Byrd Alzheimer's Center.
Journal articles cited:
1. Caffeine Reverses Cognitive Impairment and
Decreases Brain Amyloid-β Levels in Aged Alzheimer's Disease Mice; Gary
W Arendash, Takashi Mori, Chuanhai Cao, Malgorzata Mamcarz, Melissa
Runfeldt, Alexander Dickson, Kavon Rezai-Zadeh, Jun Tan, Bruce A Citron,
Xiaoyang Lin, Valentina Echeverria, and Huntington Potter; Journal of
Alzheimer's Disease, Volume 17:3 (July 2009).
2. Caffeine Suppresses Amyloid-β Levels in Plasma
and Brain of Alzheimer's Disease Transgenic Mice; Chuanhai Cao, John R
Cirrito, Xiaoyang Lin, Lilly Wang, Deborah K Verges, Alexander Dickson,
Malgorzata Mamcarz, Chi Zhang, Takashi Mori, Gary W Arendash, David M
Holzman, and Huntington Potter; Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, Volume
17:3 (July 2009).
About USF Health -
USF Health (www.health.usf.edu)
is dedicated to creating a model of health care based on understanding
the full spectrum of health. It includes the University of South
Florida's colleges of medicine, nursing, and public health; the schools
of biomedical sciences as well as physical therapy & rehabilitation
sciences; and the USF Physicians Group. With more than $360 million in
research grants and contracts last year, USF is one of the nation's top
63 public research universities and one of 39 community-engaged,
four-year public universities designated by the Carnegie Foundation for
the Advancement of Teaching.
About the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease
-
The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (http://www.j-alz.com)
is an international multidisciplinary journal to facilitate progress in
understanding the etiology, pathogenesis, epidemiology, genetics,
behavior, treatment and psychology of Alzheimer's disease. The journal
publishes research reports, reviews, short communications, book reviews,
and letters-to-the-editor. Groundbreaking research that has appeared in
the journal includes novel therapeutic targets, mechanisms of disease
and clinical trial outcomes. The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease has an
Impact Factor of 5.101 according to Thomson Reuters' 2008 Journal
Citation Reports. The Journal is published by IOS Press (http://www.iospress.nl).
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