Thursday, September 11, 2014

Your Brain on Coffee



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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