Coffee Is Good For Older Women's Memory

By Nandhini Devi

Wednesday, June 8, 2011, 18:46

One has always heard about the ill-effects of drinking coffee. But not everyone is aware that drinking coffee does benefit, particularly women. And, specially if you are an older woman, over 65 years, drinking coffee helps in protecting your memory. Researchers at the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research, in Montpellier, France concluded about this finding after extensive studies. About 7000 people where involved in a study that went over four years. During this time their caffeine consumption and cognitive abilities were assessed.

It was found that old women (over 65 years) who consumed more than three cups of coffee or tea, had shown good progress in memory tests. However, this was not the case in women who had less than a cup of the same. Researchers manipulated other factors such as education, age, depression, disability, blood pressure, medications and chronic illnesses to check the affect on memory abilities. However, they found no changes in the results.

An additional benefit of drinking more than a couple of cups of coffee in these old women was that they were under lesser risk of losing their memory. Those women over the age of 80 were almost 70% less likely to be affected by memory loss.

Karen Ritchie, who led the researchers during this study was not sure about the same result in men. She opinionated that older women might have responded more to the caffeine in the coffee. Their body's reaction to the stimulant in caffeine might have been different or might have metabolized the caffeine. She added that caffeine is a 'psycho stimulant'. This might reduce issues of cognitive decline in women.

However, before promoting the idea of having coffee as a method to decrease cognitive decline in old women, they have to do further research. One advantage would be the fact that caffeine is already widely consumed. The side-effects of this treatment is lesser too. And, the main fact is that only a small quantity is required to show the benefits.

To know make sure whether consumption of caffeine would slow dementia or prevent it, the research would be continued.

So, if you have a grandmother at home serve her that extra cup of coffee that she has been asking for!