2 To 3 Cups of Coffee a Day May Reduce Dementia Risk. But Not if It's Decaf.
4 108If you think your daily doses of espresso or Earl Grey sharpen your mind, you just might be right, new science suggests. The New York Times: A large new study provides evidence of cognitive benefits from coffee and tea -- if it's caffeinated and consumed in moderation: two to three cups of coffee or one to two cups of tea daily.
People who drank that amount for decades had lower chances of developing dementia than people who drank little or no caffeine, the researchers reported. They followed 131,821 participants for up to 43 years. "This is a very large, rigorous study conducted long term among men and women that shows that drinking two or three cups of coffee per day is associated with reduced risk of dementia," said Aladdin Shadyab, an associate professor of public health and medicine at the University of California, San Diego, who wasn't involved in the study.
The findings, published Monday in JAMA, don't prove caffeine causes these beneficial effects, and it's possible other attributes protected caffeine drinkers' brain health. But independent experts said the study adjusted for many other factors, including health conditions, medication, diet, education, socioeconomic status, family history of dementia, body mass index, smoking and mental illness.
4 comments
Re:Correlation != Causation (Score: 5, Informative)
by Sique ( 173459 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2026 @05:21AM (#65979588)
Hm. I buy a kilogram of black tea for around $10, and it lasts me around two or three month. So there is that.
Additionally, it's explicitly mentioned:
But independent experts said the study adjusted for many other factors, including health conditions, medication, diet, education, socioeconomic status, family history of dementia, body mass index, smoking and mental illness.
Re:There's a correlational study like this every y (Score: 5, Interesting)
by ledow ( 319597 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2026 @05:25AM (#65979594)
Try this:
Everything in moderation.
Coffee isn't going to hurt you, and can be beneficial. So long as you're not drinking it several times a day, every day, for the entirety of your adult life.
Same for alcohol. It does actually have some benefits. But in small doses. Not all day, every day, to excess.
Same for... almost literally anything. Salt. Sugar. Fat. All the stuff that's "bad" according to cheap headline-grabbing press. You need it all in some amount. Just not to excess.
Same, even, for things like vitamins. No vitamins = you're dead. Enough vitamins = you're fine. More vitamins = you're going to see no benefit and/or have problems (Vit D can be overdosed on, for example).
Everything in moderation. Eat red meat. It's fine. Just don't eat it every single day for every meal for decades on end.
And then you realise - that's why you get different answers from these studies, based on who's running them, who's reporting them, what they're testing, and who they are trying to target with the messaging.
Caffeine has benefits.
Drinking caffeine to excess outweighs those benefits with downsides.
The beneficial effect is rather small.
The counter-effect is rather large.
Your body consumes more than just caffeine alone.
Which explains ALL those results you gave, without having any untruths in there. Now replace "caffeine" with pretty much anything - all those things I listed above. Even drinking too much water will kill you (and it's not as much as you might think).
Everything in moderation, and then you won't have a problem.
Same for things like cigarettes, even. If you only have a few, it's not going to kill you. But if you're smoking 20 a day for decades on end? Well, hello lung cancer. It's why the most dangerous drugs are often the ADDICTIVE ones. Caffeine included. People have died from drinking too many caffeine-based energy drinks in too short a period of time.
Re:There's a correlational study like this every y (Score: 5, Informative)
by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2026 @06:56AM (#65979704)
Same for alcohol.
Actually, that's mostly just wine, and it isn't the alcohol providing any of the supposed health benefits, but the other compounds in the fermented grape juice.
Excellent news. (Score: 5, Funny)
by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2026 @05:27AM (#65979596)
I drink two cups of caffeinated coffee every morning. My working assumption, based on this post, is that this will have saved me from my lost decade of hedonistic alcohol and drug abuse. Maybe I'll up it to three cups.