Photo: Karl Fredrickson, Unsplash
Does The Accidental Awesome Of Ancient Biochem Work On Brains?:
Every once in awhile, you can run into a happy accident.
Some things people do might seem random, senseless, or just following a crowd.
But what if there’s actually a good reason; a method to the madness?
There just might be when it comes to some of the food & drink we have.
-Especially the stuff with the weird histories.
And Harvard, Mass General, and MIT teams set-out to find if there was any method behind the world’s most popular drink that is not spelled, “alcohol”…
The Short Answer:
- A lot of the healthy food & drinks we have are just “happy accidents”.
- Sodium, fruit, herbs, & spices are only a few examples.
- Harvard & some research pals looked at data from 130,000+ subjects over 43 years to do the biggest study on coffee.
- Those who drank the most amount of caffeinated drinks, including coffee, had an 18% lower rate of Dementia.
- So far, the only other things that are better or close are cardiovascular exercise and blueberries.
- The team also found that only 2-3 cups of coffee/day were necessary to get the benefit.
- For some weird reason, tea-drinkers only needed 1-2 cups/day.
- Subjects at this level of intake had lower subjective cognitive decline and better test scores.
- These effects held true even for people with proven genetic risk for dementia.
- More than 2-3 cups of coffee/day didn’t make the effects better.
- There may be a limit to how much your body can process.
- If you drink too much, it also might interfere with your sleep and cancel the benefits.
- For numbers nerds, the effective dose is anywhere between 190-300 mg/day.
- But tea-drinkers’ results show the effects might come from any of the 2000+ compounds in the drinks that aren’t even caffeine.
- Many of these reduce inflammation, even in the brain, and have been proven in multiple tests.
- Decaf drinkers did not get the benefits.
- Since caffeine & other compounds reduce inflammation, people who abstain because of issues like Anxiety, or cardio problems could miss out and create a vicious-cycle.
- This could be worth fixing no matter what, because inflammation can damage brain-cells and lead to cognitive-decline.
Read on to find out the details…
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Humanity’s History With Weird Foods Is Actually Quite Good!:
So lots of what we eat and drink comes with good reasons.
Sodium cures food so it can last longer, helps your hormones, and makes your muscles work better.
Same with sugar to an extent. In the stone-age world, it meant eating fruit and not dying from scurvy.
Almost all the herbs & spices we put in salamis and other foods kill bacteria.
But what about coffee?
Harvard, MIT, & MassGen Do The Biggest Study On Caffeine:
So in a study that is truly, “No Small-Boy Stuff”, Harvard docs and their pals gathered data on 130,000+ subjects.
The biggest study on coffee and caffeinated drinks of any kind in history.
It also lasted up to 43 years for some. So almost certainly one of the longest, too.
And for all that data, subjects who drank the most coffee had lower rates of Dementia.
18% lower!
-BOOM!
Even Better! You Don’t Have To Make It Your Whole Life:
But wait, it gets better. They actually found a reasonable cut-off, too.
The average consumption that produced results was only 2-3 cups per day.
And somehow counterintuitively for tea-drinkers, they only needed 1-2 cups per day.
So weirdly-enough, more caffeine did not yield better results.
Those subjects meeting at-least the minimum caffeine-intake also had lower subjective cognitive-decline.
And they also actually performed better on cognitive tests, so there’s more data right there!
Some Good News, Some Bad News:
Now while there is more (amazing) good news,
Like the fact that the reduction in Dementia rates held even if someone had the APOE4 genes that put them at risk for it,
There is also some bad news as well.
Like the fact that there was no reduction in Dementia rates for people who drank Decaf! (tea or coffee)
Also, more than 2-3 cups of coffee did not improve the effect.
So the body may have some limit on how much caffeine it can process in a way that’s helpful to you.
As a matter of fact, if you’re older your liver absolutely will process it slower.
Unfortunately, More Is Not Necessarily Better:
Also, if you have too much caffeine, especially within 8 hours of bedtime (because that’s the half-life),
You may end-up canceling-out the cognitive-benefits by fragmenting or wrecking your sleep.
For those who want a specific number, since 1 8oz. cup of coffee has about 95mg of caffeine,
That equates to somewhere between 190-285mg of caffeine/day being the sweet-spot in order to get all the benefits.
Just Grabbing A RedBull Might Not Be Enough:
And here is the part where things get a little weird, and why you might not want to just grab a RedBull.
For some reason Tea-drinkers needed even less than coffee drinkers to get basically the same results in all testing-categories.
But wait! One 8oz. cup of Black Tea has about 47mg of caffeine and Green Tea has 30-50!
So how can it be that it took less tea to get the same benefits as coffee?
Well, anyone who’s been to HT would know.
There are probably a lot more things going on than just the caffeine, no matter how hard the Harvard study wants to index on it.
The Benefits Of Coffee And Tea Don’t Just Come From Caffeine:
Probably beneficial plant-compounds like polyphenols and flavonoids.
As a matter-of-fact, (brace yourself) there may be a LOT MORE than just caffeine that gets removed from the coffee during the decaffeination process.
For example, there are 2200 natural compounds in coffee, and 100+ of them actually affect you.
Tea is similar at ~3000, and up to 100s of them cause effects in some way.
So if there are a ton of those listed in The Flavonoids Superpost,
Then maybe those are what the decaf-drinkers are missing out on?
Processing Might Be Quietly Stealing From You:
Not only that, but both regular tea & coffee have compounds in them that reduce brain-inflammation.
-So maybe that’s another angle entirely. Perhaps similar to the way ultraprocessed-foods are linked with both inflammation and detrimental cognitive impacts.
And great news for people who like different kinds of tea. Well, at least a few.
The researchers found no distinction between the positive effects of tea being down to black tea or green.
Is The Decaf Defeat Just A Vicious-Cycle?:
But by contrast, not only were Decaf drinkers less fortunate than regular-drinkers, they also got worse with dosage.
The ones who reported being heavy decaf drinkers actually had worse memory problems, cognitive test-results, and Dementia outcomes than people who just drank a light amount.
Researchers are not sure why, but there can be a Vicious-Cycle effect that explains it.
Some people could have physical or mental issues that seem aggravated with coffee consumption, so they switch to decaf.
->However quite-weirdly, these conditions are actually pro-Dementia and no longer staved-off by the consumption of caffeinated tea or coffee.
The Only Extracted-Cell Study With Real-World Results:
Interestingly enough, unlike just about every “extracted cell” study in Health research history,
Caffeine actually does reduce inflammation; including the stuff in your brain.
So since inflammation can damage things if it hangs-out long enough.
If it gets into the brain, it can damage your brain-cells over time.
->And that means? Cognitive decline.
Reduced-Processing Also Works With Coffee & Tea:
So even if it gives you the jitters and you have to space it out with food, water, or box-breathing,
You probably want to get your hot drinks in their standard, caffeinated forms.
Because there is certainly wisdom in reducing the level of processing you get in your foods.
And that holds-true even with coffee and tea!
It might be a good idea to trust the wisdom of people experimenting with food & drink for a few hundred or thousand years,
And not just dismiss them as crazy goat-herders.
-Even the godfather of all Health & Wellness said to let your food be your medicine!
OLÉ, CAFÉ!
References & Links:
• Source: Harvard
• Source Study: JAMA Investigation – Coffee and Tea Intake, Dementia Risk, and Cognitive Function
