I found some other interesting info on Parkinson’s Disease. I remember hearing about this in PSIO 480 and wanted to learn more about it. There was a study done about the effects of caffeine on PD. It was a longitudinal study over a period of 30 years where 8,004 Japanese-American men (aged 45-68) drank different amounts of coffee each day. It turns out that only 102 of these men developed PD. The ones who drank the most coffee (more than 28oz/day) were least likely to develop PD and the ones who did not drink any coffee were five time more likely to get PD than those who drank more than 28oz/day. Drinking other caffeine sources such as black tea, green tea, chocolate, and soda were also associated with a lower risk of PD. Other nutrients in coffee, including niacin, were unrelated to PD incidence. The relationship between caffeine and PD was not affected by sugar or milk that was added in the coffee.
Caffeine belongs to the xanthine chemical group. A naturally occurring xanthine in the brain called adenosine is used as a neurotransmitter at some synapses. When adenosine receptors are blocked, levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine increase. Caffeine may protect against Parkinson's disease by blocking adenosine receptors, thus increasing the amount of dopamine in the brain.
Although the new research is suggestive of a link between caffeine and Parkinson's disease, it is too early to say that caffeine will prevent Parkinson's disease. Perhaps the brains of people who like and dislike coffee are different. It may be that this difference results in the different incidence of Parkinson's disease and in the consumption of coffee. Also, the study included older, Japanese-American men. It is unknown if the caffeine/Parkinson disease relationship holds for other ethnic groups, women and younger people. As with many preliminary studies, this research requires further experiments to establish a causal link between caffeine and reduced incidence of Parkinson's disease. Overall, caffeine can be thought of as a preventative for PD, but not necessarily a treatment or cure. Now don't go drinking high amounts of caffeine to prevent PD because too much caffeine has been linked to developing schizophrenia.
Resources:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/283/20/2674?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=coffee&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT
http://www.webmd.com/news/20000523/caffeine-protect-against-parkinsons-disease
4 comments:
Oh yeah I remember that from Psio 480. That was interested. There was also a youtube video about the symptoms of Parkinson's. I tried to look for it on youtube but I didn't find it but there are a lot of other videos of patients having tremors.
Considering I consume a ridiculous amount of caffeine on a daily basis...I'm definitely hoping those statistics carry over into Caucasian females :) I also found an article in Science Daily from last year introducing that smoking may prevent Parkinson's too...crazy
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070709171619.htm
I remember that too! I also remember it making me feel a lot better about how much coffee...well caffeine in general that I have!! Maybe energy drinks aren't that bad after all.
Im always watching for reasons not to quit coffee! I found a few other studies that are jazzed on java. Researchers at John Hopkins followed former medical students for 30 years to see if coffee drinkers were at an increased risk of developing chronic high blood pressure. They found that while coffee drinkers did have higher blood pressure than non-coffee drinkers, they did NOT seem to be at an increased risk for developing clinical hypertension. A compound in coffee is thought to decrease the risk of colon cancer (University of Munster, Germany). Lastly, a study at Harvard linked the consumption of 4-5 cups of coffee per day with 30% lower risk of Type II Diabetes. Cool huh?
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