Your Brain on Coffee
We have all drank a cup or two of coffee in our lifetime
just to see what the big deal is for drinking it. We have specialized coffee
you can buy from Starbucks or your taste buds can settle for an ordinary cup of
java from fast food stores such as McDonald’s or Burger King. Regardless of
which brand you drink, it has been shown by research what coffee does to your
brain.
One of the most consequential or meaningful ways coffee
impacts your brain is how they reshape or alter the biochemical environment inside
your head. What has been demonstrated through animal experiments is the fact
that coffee can actually help you fight off the negative effects of dementia.
Without going through the technical aspects of such a study
or experiment it comes down to this fact. A dose of caffeine showed it
disrupted the actions of adenosine, a substance inside cells that usually
provides energy but can become destructive if it leaks out when the cells are
injured or under stress.
That is a significant finding for the escaped adenosine can
accelerate or jump start a biochemical cascade leading to inflammation which
can disrupt the functions of neurons and potentially contribute to the
neurodegeneration of cells or in other words – dementia.
In another study with humans this time participants with
little or no caffeine circulating in their bloodstreams were far more likely to
have progressed to full-blown Alzheimer’s than those whose blood indicated
they’d had about three cups’ worth of caffeine. There’s still much to be
learned about the effects of coffee.
“We don’t know whether
blocking the action of adenosine is sufficient” to prevent or lessen the
effects of dementia, says Dr. Gregory G. Freund, a professor of pathology at
the University of Illinois who led the 2012 study of mice. It is also unclear
whether caffeine by itself provides the benefits associated with coffee
drinking or if coffee contains other valuable ingredients
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