Always interesting to read a new take on the disease. Nobody's saying this is gospel - for now just an interesting observation. DW was not a caffienated beverage drinker - drinks Diet Sprite by the case. This from the NY Times -
January 24, 2009 Coffee Linked to Lower Dementia Risk By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Drinking coffee may do more than just keep you awake. A new study suggests an intriguing potential link to mental health later in life, as well.
A team of Swedish and Danish researchers tracked coffee consumption in a group of 1,409 middle-age men and women for an average of 21 years. During that time, 61 participants developed dementia, 48 with Alzheimer’s disease.
After controlling for numerous socioeconomic and health factors, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less. People who drank more than five cups a day also were at reduced risk of dementia, the researchers said, but there were not enough people in this group to draw statistically significant conclusions.
Dr. Miia Kivipelto, an associate professor of neurology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and lead author of the study, does not as yet advocate drinking coffee as a preventive health measure. “This is an observational study,” she said. “We have no evidence that for people who are not drinking coffee, taking up drinking will have a protective effect.”
Dr. Kivipelto and her colleagues suggest several possibilities for why coffee might reduce the risk of dementia later in life. First, earlier studies have linked coffee consumption with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, which in turn has been associated with a greater risk of dementia. In animal studies, caffeine has been shown to reduce the formation of amyloid plaques in the brain, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Finally, coffee may have an antioxidant effect in the bloodstream, reducing vascular risk factors for dementia.
Dr. Kivipelto noted that previous studies have shown that coffee drinking may also be linked to a reduced risk of Parkinson’s disease.
The new study, published this month in The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, is unusual in that more than 70 percent of the original group of 2,000 people randomly selected for tracking were available for re-examination 21 years later. The dietary information had been collected at the beginning of the study, which reduced the possibility of errors introduced by people inaccurately recalling their consumption. Still, the authors acknowledge that any self-reported data is subject to inaccuracies.
My mother donated her body to OHSU - wonder if they checked her brain. She was an avid coffee drinker. Me - never could acquire a taste for it. She had dementia that set in after 70. She was depressed due to a tough life starting in childhood. When she retired, one of my sister's talked her into selling her place in town and moving out in the boonies to her place. This led her to isolation and with the depression is when I believe the dementia set in. When she died from age related conditions at age 79, she didn't know any of us, but she was living in her childhood (same as her mom who was 94 when she died). If she had stayed in town, I believe the dementia would have been delayed due her not being as depressed.
Studies unfortunately tend to contradict themselves. When they keep coming up with the same conclusion, then I will give them more importance. But, that will not stop me from trying the coconut oil, increasing fish oil, CoQ10 and other supplements.
My wife has been an avid coffee drinker most of her adult life. She also exercised and did cross-word puzzles. She has never been overweight. Now she has both Alzheimer's and type 2 Diabetes. So I put little, if any, trust in these studies.
About a week ago my husband and I went for a drive in the woods. This thing about drinking x amount of coffee reduced the risk of dementia....was on the radio. My husband who has always drank a lot of coffee said...... "ya right" The very next day we went for that same ride and on the radio they said that another study showed that x amount of coffee can cause hallucinations....Oh boy did we laugh!
DH just quit drinking coffee about 2-12 years ago--about the same time he was diagnosed with MCI. Then 15 mos later he was diagnosed with moderate to severe AD. Now, 14 mos after that, he has deteriorated more. So much for these studies.
In today's Fox News, they report that obesity can be caught like a virus when someone sneezes. That's about as crazy as drinking coffee can prevent AD. No, I don't put much faith in these studies either. I'm going to send that report to my sister. Yeah, we caught obesity from our Dad when he sneezed.
Dazed, I haven't looked into this recently ... but ... there has been an amazing increase in the number of obese people around the globe, even in countries where most people don't have nearly enough to eat. So I have seen speculation that there may be something going on, such as a virus emerging that can upset normal metabolism and cause obesity. Haven't seen any studies designed to try to confirm or refute the hypothesis. But then, I haven't looked for any, either. Maybe I'll do that when Mistee stops lying on half of my computer keyboard. It's harder than heck to try to Google and type when she does that.
The study said possibly 1/3 of the obesity could be caused from the virus that causes colds - it depends on what part of the body it infiltrates. It could be the answer for some, 1/3 as they say, but for me it is PCOS which they now know is a symptom of insulin resistance. Obesity is a side effect so it is very difficult to loose weight.
Oh my, Sunshyne, could there really be something to that report? I just laughed when I read it.
Charlotte, you do have a real excuse for not being able to lose weight. I'm about 30 lbs overweight and for me, it's just eating too much and not spending enough time at the gym.
I have to thank you, Dazed, this turned out to be a very interesting search.
The possible relationship between viral infections and obesity is still being studied, although mostly by two principal investigators. Dr Dhurandhar, the person who gave the interview, is an associate prof at Louisiana State University, where he studies possible mechanisms of virus-induced obesity, primarily associated with adenovirus Ad-36. It appears that he was a protege of Dr Atkinson at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Dhurandhar and Atkinson founded a company, in 1997, to develop technology surrounding Ad-36; the company apparently didn't survive, and Dhurandhar moved to Louisiana State. Atkinson has since moved to Richmond VA ("home") where he founded another company, Obetech, in 2004, developing tests for Ad-36 and offering testing services. It appears that the two men continue to collaborate.
Mind you, the Dhurandhar papers I quickly scanned appeared to be well written, and the experiments carefully designed. I think the science is pretty sound, with one exception (which we'll get to in a minute.) But there might be just a little bit of ... personal profit ... involved in the conclusions they have drawn about the importance of viruses in the overall scheme of things.
And, as usual, Fox News was exaggerating just a teensy bit. <sigh>
As far as I can see, the link between viruses and obesity in humans has not been established. If this were a murder trial, the evidence would be called "circumstantial".
The prevalence of obesity began to increase sharply around 1980 in the United States and worldwide in both developed and developing countries. The reason for this "epidemic" increase in obesity is not clear, but that's hardly surprising, since we really do not have a clue what causes obesity in the first place. (More on that later.)
Such a pattern of spreading would fit with being caused by an infectious organism. However, no such organism has been identified.
A handful of viruses have been shown to be capable of causing obesity in certain animals when the animals are deliberately infected. Four of these viruses attack the central nervous system to produce obesity; they typically cause other symptoms (canine distemper, scrapie, etc); and they don't infect humans. SMAM-1, an adenovirus found in India which normally infects chickens, acts directly on adipocytes (fat cells), and is the only virus that has been positively linked to human obesity; that is, the chicken virus has infected a few humans who worked closely with the birds.
Three human adenoviruses, adenovirus (Ad) 36, Ad-37, and Ad-5, can also affect adipocytes directly. Ad-5 and Ad-37 have been shown to cause obesity in a variety of animals. Ad-36 can cause obesity when injected into chickens, mice, rats, and monkeys. Ad-36 is the only human adenovirus to date that has been linked with human obesity (BUT see below). The others have been investigated, and found to NOT have any link to obesity in humans.
There have been some interesting studies, done with rats, mice, or cell or tissue cultures, on possible mechanisms whereby viral infection could, possibly, induce the onset of obesity. These are very interesting, and are consistent with what is known about adipose cells and their role in obesity. However, while animal and cell and tissue culture studies can often be very useful in teasing out the underlying pathologies of diseases, they can also sometimes be spectacularly misleading.
Now, the link between Ad-36 and obesity in humans is based on tests for human antibody titers. In a study to test for serum neutralizing antibodies to Ad-36, 30% of subjects who were obese had the antibodies, while only 11% of subjects who were lean had them.
So even if these findings are valid, simply being infected does not invariably lead to obesity.
This apparent link would be extremely impressive, were it not for the fact that antibodies are not NEARLY as specific as many people think. That is, while an antibody may bind to this virus, it may also bind to a lot of other things, many of them totally unrelated. I had expected to find that genetic testing had been done ... but it apparently hasn't. So while some scientists are accepting these studies as having shown a link, I personally believe that the jury is still out.
The studies have only been done in the U.S., so no evidence has yet been developed of a link between Ad-36 and obesity in other countries or on other continents (which would be particularly important in showing a role for this virus in the "obesity epidemic".)
Now, is there any evidence that Ad-36 might not be causing a world-wide obesity epidemic?
Well, for one thing, obese patients who test positive for the "Ad-36" antibody have lower serum cholesterol and triglycerides than do antibody-negative individuals. This strikes me as being rather unusual for obese patients in general. I didn't bother to look into this, but Dhurandhar refers to the increase in adipose tissue and the low levels of serum cholesterol and triglycerides to be "paradoxical", so I assume he feels the same.
Moreover, there is almost no information on how Ad-36 might be spread, or whether it has any pathogenicity in humans.
Yes, you'll see articles in the popular press that say Ad-36 causes colds and sore throats ... not true. Other adenoviruses cause respiratory illnesses.
Viruses are classified by size, structure, whether they contain RNA or DNA, and what types of antibodies can bind to them (serotyping), NOT by the type of illnesses they cause. So just because one adenovirus causes sore throats does NOT mean that they all do. So far, there are some 51 known serotypes, which cause respiratory disease, conjunctivitis, or gastroenteritis in humans. Species HAdV-B and C cause respiratory disease; HAdV-F serotypes 40 and 41 cause gastroenteritis (inflammation of the small intestine). Note that there is no overlap.
In fact, it appears that very little is known about Ad-36 virus. It was originally discovered in 1980, in the feces of a young girl with gastroenteritis. The only method of infection that has been confirmed to date -- in animals, nothing is known about humans -- is via blood. One study with four chickens implied that close contact with the feces of infected birds could transmit the virus to another chicken. Since the virus was originally found in feces, it would make sense that it could be transmitted by contact with feces. But the chickens were in small cages, and could easily have scratched each other and drawn blood.
As far as I can see, the link between viruses and obesity in humans is still tenuous at best.
Now. Part of what made the lit search interesting is what I found regarding obesity itself.
Obesity is not a single disease. Obesity is an exceedingly complex group of diseases and probably should be characterized as a syndrome. Even though research in the area only just begun, more than 350 genes or gene markers have been identified that appear to be associated with obesity and may contribute to the etiology of obesity in animals and humans. In addition, there are numerous environmental factors, one or more of which appear to be necessary for the expression of obesity. It appears that, in most people, both one or more genetic factors and one or more environmental factors must be present for obesity to occur. This suggests that there may be thousands of different types of obesity.
Despite its continued popularity, the old belief that obesity is simply the result of a lack of will power and an inability to discipline eating habits is no longer defensible. It is likely that few or no cases of obesity are simply the result of overeating.
Some of the environmental factors were quite interesting, e.g., intrauterine nutrition. Studies on the children born during war time indicate that, if mothers were starved during the first 6 months of pregnancy, their children were obese; but if the mothers were starved in the last 3 mo, their children tended to be thinner than normal.
Also, fat isn't what we thought it was! Until recently, adipose tissue has been considered to be a mere storage compartment of triglycerides. It is now clear that adipocytes are highly active endocrine cells that play a central role in overall energy homeostasis and are important contributors to some aspects of the immune system. They do so not only by influencing systemic lipid homeostasis but also through the production and release of a host of adipocyte-specific and adipocyte-enriched hormonal factors, cytokines, and extracellular matrix components (commonly referred to as "adipokines").
Given that this tissue is so active, and is known to affect the immune system, it would not be surprising if there were an antibody profile associated with some causes of obesity. And perhaps one or more of those antibodies binds to Ad-36 serendipitously...
Sunshyne, if you ever decide to add a thumbnail photo to your profile, I'd like to nominate a photo of the Energizer bunny -- I don't know how you sustain the energy to do all this research you do as well as reading/posting on multiple forums -- while at the same time caregiving!
Iggy, my son read that article on coffee linked to lower dementia risk and e-mailed me and said that if drinking coffee had anything to do with it that his father would not have AD, because he drank coffee continuously from the time he got up until the time he went to bed all of his adult life! My husband is 5'11" and weighed 158-170 for over 40 years.
Sunshyne, dear one, I owe you more than I can say.......because from now on, I'm saying I have a virus that is causing me to be fat - that it is NOTfrom too much eating and lack of exercise!!!!!!
Really, Sunshyne, we can't thank you enough for being our researcher. I've learned so much on so many different topics thanks to your research!
Mary, you still need to exercise, no matter whether you're skinny as a rail or ... Reubenesque. Lack of exercise may not have anything to do with your womanly curves, but it can cause you all sorts of health problems. So be a good girl, and start counting those steps around the house. <grin>
Sunshyne, I walk over 5,000 steps a day going from my car to my office, going to other offices in the building (plus the restroom is 1/2 block from my desk) and I walk several blocks at lunch, then to other offices, and then back to the car. I loved water aerobics and will do some on the cruise....as well as swimming. Thank you for caring! And I'm very overweight right now.....It's just that I LOVE the flavor of good food! And I know that I've got to get this extra weight off. And I will. Sometime... <grin> (I've lost and gained like a roller coaster all of my life....from size 8 to size 20, back and forth many times....and stay for 5 years, then reverse...it depends on my will power....)