"Drinking three cups of coffee per day may help turn the tide against Alzheimers disease https among older adults who are already showing signs of memory problems a new study shows. According to the findings people older than  who had higher blood https levels of caffeine https developed Alzheimers disease https two to four years later than their counterparts with lower caffeine https levels. The findings will appear in the Journal of Alzheimers Disease https Alzheimers disease is the most common type of dementia https Symptoms include serious memory loss https confusion and mood changes that develop gradually and worsen with time. The new study included  people aged  to  who had mild cognitive impairment which is the medical term for mild memory loss https About  of people with MCI develop fullblown Alzheimers disease each year. In the study blood https levels of caffeine https were more than  lower among people with MCI who developed Alzheimers during followup when compared with their counterparts who did not worsen. Coffee was the main or only source of caffeine among people in the study. No one with mild memory loss who later developed Alzheimers had initial blood caffeine levels above  ngml. This is equivalent to drinking several cups of coffee a few hours before giving blood. People whose memory loss did not progress all had blood caffeine levels higher than this level the study shows. Continue to drink coffee says researcher Chuanhai Cao PhD. He is a neuroscientist at the University of South Floridas College of Pharmacy and Byrd Alzheimers Institute in Tampa. There is no reason to stop if you are experiencing memory problems. There may even be a reason to start for people in their late s and up he says. Aim for an average of three ounce cups of coffee per day in the morning after eating breakfast https Coffee May Lower Alzheimers Risk Exactly how coffee helps delay the development of Alzheimers is not known but Cao has a theory. It involves betaamyloid a protein that accumulates in the brains of people who have Alzheimers disease. Betaamyloid doesnt cause Alzheimers https he says. We are born with this protein in our brains. So what goes wrong This protein accumulates or aggregates in the brain https because it is no longer sufficiently metabolized with advancing age. Your system cant handle all of it and leftover protein accumulates in the brain https Enter your daily cups of joe. Caffeine inhibits the production of betaamyloid so your system only metabolizes all of the available protein Cao says. Put another way There are no leftovers. Coffee may have other important health benefits as well. Research has shown that it can reduce the risk of Parkinsons disease https stroke https type  diabetes httpsdiabetes.webmd.comguidediabetes_symptoms_types and breast cancer https Sam Gandy MD PhD reviewed the new findings for WebMD. He is the Mount Sinai chair in Alzheimers disease research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. There is some support for this observation he says via email. There are basic science studies from our lab and from other labs showing that a substance called cyclic AMP can reduce formation of amyloid and it is well known that caffeine elevates cyclic AMP levels. Whats more attention is a key component of memory and it is well established that caffeine increases attention. Thus it is conceivable that caffeine improves memory by virtue of its effects on memory. But Gandy adds the jury is still out on how or if caffeine affects risk for Alzheimers. Before we can recommend any drug even caffeine we must test the drug in randomized clinical trials https That would be the obvious next step for the caffeine story."