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Posted on 03/08/2026 7:25:51 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
A daily cup of coffee or tea may do more than wake you up—it could also help keep your brain sharp as you age. New research tracking hundreds of thousands of people over decades suggests that moderate caffeine consumption is linked to a lower risk of developing dementia.
“Caffeine increases the brain’s activity and can accelerate the speed of messages between the brain and the body,” Jolene Knight, psychiatric nurse practitioner at Stony Brook Medicine’s Center of Excellence for Alzheimer’s disease, and not involved in the study, told The Epoch Times.
“When searching for possible dementia prevention tools, we thought something as prevalent as coffee may be a promising dietary intervention,” senior author Dr. Daniel Wang, associate scientist with the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Mass General Brigham, said in a statement.
Wang and his team tracked participants from two long-term studies of medical professionals, the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, with starting ages typically in their mid-40s to early 50s.
They found that people who drank between one and five eight-ounce cups of caffeinated coffee had an 18 percent reduced risk of dementia.
However, those who drank caffeinated tea daily had a roughly 15 percent reduced risk.
Interestingly, the benefits plateaued beyond two and a half cups of coffee daily, possibly because the body cannot process higher amounts of the beneficial compounds in these beverages. Caffeine can mimic adenosine and bind to receptors in the brain, blocking the molecule that promotes sleepiness, and keeping us alert, Knight said. By doing so, it increases neuron activity, which may reduce inflammation.
“Inflammation is being studied as a cause of cognitive impairment,” she said. “Caffeine has the potential to reduce oxidative stress and neuroinflammation, which helps to decrease brain aging.”
Scientists propose that caffeine might protect the brain by reducing inflammation and improving blood vessel function. It may also enhance insulin sensitivity, which is important because diabetes is a risk factor for dementia, due to the increased risk of heart disease and stroke.
The study also looked at subjective cognitive decline—people’s perceptions that their memory and thinking skills are slipping. Those who drank more caffeine were less likely to report such issues. Among women over 70, those who drank more caffeine scored better on cognitive tests, indicating slower cognitive decline by about seven months.
Cognitive decline was assessed using cohort-specific questionnaires with yes-or-no responses covering general memory, executive function, attention, and visuospatial skills.
The better cognition among tea and coffee drinkers may come from caffeine’s ability to increase dopamine and acetylcholine in the brain, which are important for memory and cognition, Knight said. “Dopamine is the reward center in the brain and leads to feeling alert, focused, and pleasure. Acetylcholine is the memory neurotransmitter.”
The study didn’t track whether participants added milk or sugar, which could influence health effects. Some experts note that drinking more than four cups a day offers no additional benefits and could even be harmful, potentially disrupting sleep or increasing anxiety.
Researchers caution that they cannot determine causation and that other factors may influence the results. For example, some participants might have been drinking decaffeinated coffee for health reasons, which could affect outcomes.
“While our results are encouraging, it’s important to remember that the effect size is small and there are lots of important ways to protect cognitive function as we age. Our study suggests that caffeinated coffee or tea consumption can be one piece of that puzzle,” Wang stated.
Coffee acts as a diuretic, which can lead to dehydration—a concern given that most adults already fall short of the recommended eight glasses of water a day.
“I always tell my patients for each cup of coffee you should drink a glass of water.” She added that dehydration can lead to altered mental status, confusion, and kidney damage.
Finally, Knight cautioned that older people should be careful about caffeine intake, because it can disrupt sleep, which itself is a risk factor for cognitive decline.
“Caffeine can lead to increased difficulty with sleep,” she said. “Poor sleep can impair cognition, causing increased confusion or brain fog, and increase dementia risk over time.”
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Could be related to food intake. Energy flagging? If you drink coffee instead of grabbing a snack, that’s fewer calories clogging your arteries.
Coffee is 99% water.
You can not drink enough coffee to dehydrate you.
I’m turning in my espresso machine receipt to insurance
I love this study and realized the truth of it long ago.
Great news for those of us who drink coffee daily...
And here I’ve been all along, worrying that every can of diet soda I drink was taking 5 minutes off my life.
Sets my mind at ease until next year, when another study will find the caffeine makes me forget things my wife has told me.
My wife needs to see this study.
I usually drink between 2-3 cups of coffee a day, summer months are even better as I keep a pitcher of saved brew and make delicious Iced Coffees,my absolute favorite besides water.
Or iced tea with caffeine. Or any tea…green or earl grey or black tea. Does not need to be coffee. Just needs caffeine.
What about “Ice Tea”?
I drink black tea (with spearmint, unsweetened) every day.
What about Diet Coke?
We know Joe Biden ate ice cream all day long.
Now THAT is great news.
I’m doomed—I don’t like coffee.
Incorrect. The coffee represents a portion of your total water intake. If normal renal excretion of urine increases your water balance becomes a deficit until you drink more water. Case in point is alcohol also a powerful diuretic. Drink to much and you wake up with a powerful thirst and a hangover.
Relative to coffee do not even talk to me in the morning until I have had my second cup. I am not nice until then. LOL
Wait - I can get someone else to pay for that superautomatic upgrade!?
;-P
You might be able to drink enough hard alcohol to dehydrate you but if you stuck to beer probably not.
The thirst the next morning is at least partly caused by your other activities.
“the recommended eight glasses of water a day.”
IIRC, that eight glasses thing was debunked a few years ago. It’s much more than required.
I wonder where coffee ice cream falls in this study. 😉
Three shots of espresso after breakfast and dinner. Total of about 400mg per day.
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