Friday, April 4, 2008

Daily Caffeine 'Protects Brain'

BBC News: Daily Caffeine ‘Protects Brain’: this article describes results just out in the Journal of Neuroinflammation.
The drink has already been linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer's Disease, and a study by a US team for the Journal of Neuroinflammation may explain why.
It's hard to improve on John Gruber's précis of this story:
From the department of things I link to because I really hope they’re true.
In fact, I'm putting my money where my mouth is by sipping some expensive caffeine even now. I don't know if my brain is being protected from cholesterol, but it certainly feels less fuzzy than it did 30 minutes ago.


Two quotes from one of the study authors:
Caffeine is a safe and readily available drug and its ability to stabilise the blood brain barrier means it could have an important part to play in therapies against neurological disorders.
Caffeine appears to block several of the disruptive effects of cholesterol that make the blood-brain barrier leaky.
Pardon me while I run out and buy some Starbucks stock...

2 comments:

X-Ray Geek said...

If that's the case, then I will be protected til I'm 120!!

Zorg said...

I wonder if the effect is affected by exposure to grays? Perhaps exposure increases the effect. Yeah, that's the ticket! ....