This article requires a subscription to view the full text. If you have a subscription you may use the login form below to view the article. Access to this article can also be purchased.
Abstract
Objective: To examine the association between caffeine intake, cognitive decline, and incident dementia in a community-based sample of subjects aged 65 years and over.
Methods: Participants were 4,197 women and 2,820 men from a population-based cohort recruited from three French cities. Cognitive performance, clinical diagnosis of dementia, and caffeine consumption were evaluated at baseline and at 2 and 4 year follow-up.
Results: Caffeine consumption is associated with a wide range of sociodemographic, lifestyle, and clinical variables which may also affect cognitive decline. Multivariate mixed models and multivariate adjusted logistic regression indicated that women with high rates of caffeine consumption (over three cups per day) showed less decline in verbal retrieval (OR = 0.67, CI = 0.53, 0.85), and to a lesser extent in visuospatial memory (OR = 0.82, CI = 0.65, 1.03) over 4 years than women consuming one cup or less. The protective effect of caffeine was observed to increase with age (OR = 0.73, CI = 0.53, 1.02 in the age range 65 to 74; OR = 0.3, CI = 0.14, 0.63 in the range 80+). No relation was found between caffeine intake and cognitive decline in men. Caffeine consumption did not reduce dementia risk over 4 years.
Conclusions: The psychostimulant properties of caffeine appear to reduce cognitive decline in women without dementia, especially at higher ages. Although no impact is observed on dementia incidence, further studies are required to ascertain whether caffeine may nonetheless be of potential use in prolonging the period of mild cognitive impairment in women prior to a diagnosis of dementia.
Footnotes
-
*These authors contributed equally to this work.
The 3C Study is conducted under a partnership agreement among INSERM, the Victor Segalen–Bordeaux II University, and Sanofi-Synthélabo. The Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale funded the preparation and first phase of the study. The 3C-Study is also supported by the Caisse Nationale Maladie des Travailleurs Salariés, Direction Générale de la Santé, MGEN, the Institut de la Longévité, Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits de Santé, the regional governments of Aquitaine, Bourgogne, and Languedoc-Roussillon, and the Fondation de France, the Ministry of Research-INSERM Programme “Cohorts and collection of biological material.” The Lille Génopôle received an unconditional grant from Eisai.
Disclosure: The authors report no conflicts of interest.
Received November 30, 2006. Accepted in final form March 5, 2007.
AAN Members
We have changed the login procedure to improve access between AAN.com and the Neurology journals. If you are experiencing issues, please log out of AAN.com and clear history and cookies. (For instructions by browser, please click the instruction pages below). After clearing, choose preferred Journal and select login for AAN Members. You will be redirected to a login page where you can log in with your AAN ID number and password. When you are returned to the Journal, your name should appear at the top right of the page.
AAN Non-Member Subscribers
Purchase access
Letters: Rapid online correspondence
REQUIREMENTS
You must ensure that your Disclosures have been updated within the previous six months. Please go to our Submission Site to add or update your Disclosure information.
Your co-authors must send a completed Publishing Agreement Form to Neurology Staff (not necessary for the lead/corresponding author as the form below will suffice) before you upload your comment.
If you are responding to a comment that was written about an article you originally authored:
You (and co-authors) do not need to fill out forms or check disclosures as author forms are still valid
and apply to letter.
Submission specifications:
- Submissions must be < 200 words with < 5 references. Reference 1 must be the article on which you are commenting.
- Submissions should not have more than 5 authors. (Exception: original author replies can include all original authors of the article)
- Submit only on articles published within 6 months of issue date.
- Do not be redundant. Read any comments already posted on the article prior to submission.
- Submitted comments are subject to editing and editor review prior to posting.
