Can’t get going without that morning cup of coffee? New research suggests that drinking your coffee daily may provide protection against heart disease for people 65 and older.

Researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and Brooklyn College, state that people over 65 who had higher caffeinated beverage intake had lower risk of coronary vascular disease and heart mortality than did those with lower caffeinated beverage intake.

“The protection against death from heart disease in the elderly afforded by caffeine is likely due to caffeine’s enhancement of blood pressure”, said John Kassotis, MD, associate professor of medicine at SUNY Downstate.

The protective benefits were found only in people who were not severely hypertensive and no protective effect was found in patients under 65. No protective effect against stroke was found.

The conclusions were drawn by researchers studying data from the first federal National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Epidemiologic Follow-up Study.

Caffeine may prevent heart disease in elderly

Researchers at the Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute report that the intake of caffeine equivalent to five cups of coffee a day, protected memory in Alzheimer’s mice and lowered the levels of the abnormal protein, beta-amyloid. Even when the mice had already high levels of beta-amyloid in their brains, intake of caffeine brought them down to lower levels.

“We were surprised to find that Alzheimer’s mice given caffeine in their drinking water throughout adult life performed much better than Alzheimer’s mice not given caffeine and very similar to normal mice without the disease,” said Dr. Gary Arendash, Ph.D, lead researcher in the study.

This research is in line with earlier research in humans that showed Alzheimer’s patients had a lower caffeine intake during the 20 years preceding diagnosis compared with age-matched individuals without Alzheimer’s disease.

Johnnie B. Byrd, Sr. Alzheimer’s Center & Research Institute.