Date published: 2007/08/07
The BBC says:
Caffeine may help older women ward off mental decline, research suggests. French researchers compared women aged 65 and older who drank more than three cups of coffee per day with those who drank one cup or less per day.
Those who drank more caffeine showed less decline in memory tests over a four year period.
The study, published in the journal Neurology, raises the possibility that caffeine may even protect against the development of dementia.
The results held up even after factors such as education, high blood pressure and disease were taken into account.
Caffeine is a known psychostimulant, but this study appears to suggest its effects may be more profound.
However, lead researcher Dr Karen Ritchie of the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research warned against jumping to premature conclusions.
...
She said it was not clear why the protective effect did not seem to apply to men.
The way this study should have been done is to randomly select some of the women to drink more than three cups per day and some women to drink one or less. Since it was not done this way, there is every chance they are confusing correlation and causation, although they seem to have tried to protect against that to some extent, and also it is curious why this effect should be noted in women but not in men. And unfortunately, as with all health studies, they are looking at one thing in isolation. Although caffeine might be correlated with this, positive, effect, it could also easily be correlated with other, not so positive, effects.
_________________________________________________________
All material not included from other sources is copyright cambridge2000.com.
For further information or questions email: info [at] cambridge2000 [dot] com
(replace "[at]" with "@" and "[dot]" with ".").