Posted on 03/07/2017 2:15:49 PM PST by JimSEA
A study by Indiana University researchers has identified 24 compounds -- including caffeine -- with the potential to boost an enzyme in the brain shown to protect against dementia.
The protective effect of the enzyme, called NMNAT2, was discovered last year through research conducted at IU Bloomington. The new study appears today in the journal Scientific Reports.
"This work could help advance efforts to develop drugs that increase levels of this enzyme in the brain, creating a chemical 'blockade' against the debilitating effects of neurodegenerative disorders," said Hui-Chen Lu, who led the study. Lu is a Gill Professor in the Linda and Jack Gill Center for Biomolecular Science and the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, a part of the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences.
Previously, Lu and colleagues found that NMNAT2 plays two roles in the brain: a protective function to guard neurons from stress and a "chaperone function" to combat misfolded proteins called tau, which accumulate in the brain as "plaques" due to aging. The study was the first to reveal the "chaperone function" in the enzyme.
Misfolded proteins have been linked to neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, as well as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease. Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of these disorders, affects over 5.4 million Americans, with numbers expected to rise as the population ages.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Oh, BS, I’ve been drinking coffee over 50 years and I still have dementia (or so I’m told).
With the latest 250 grand cash infusion is this site going to work normal, like a 1990’s era site should work in 2016?
oh yea it’s 2017.....i forgot.
for later
for later
The coffee pot is a brewing three, sometimes four, times a day.
You sound quite alert......
[Explains why my parents are still so sharp at their age.
The coffee pot is a brewing three, sometimes four, times a day.]
Yes but they run around the house like squirrels. LOL
Caffeine wreaks havoc on bodies having problems with gout and/or kidney stones though. At least if I get dementia I won’t care.
That may just be your bad genetics. Some folks start off with a low memory anility
Mom still has her garden and Dad chops his own firewood.
Lemme share my opinion about what happens as we age. Think of your brain as a house with a big front porch. The new stuff all goes to the front porch. At the end of the day it is all swept into the main house which becomes longer term memory.
If you are anywhere near 60 just think about the load you have put on your front porch during all those years. Everything still ends up in the main house but you have put soooooooo much in there that it takes a while for it to all get filed and catalogued so you can find it. The younger the person is, the less they have to sort through.
obviously you could use a cup of coffee... :)
I believe these studies.
I am a good example of this.
I do consume a lot of caffeinated beverages, and in fact, my cognition and mental agility are so sharp that I can recall what I had for breakfast tomorrow.
I worry that coffee is so acidic that over time (like if you drink it for decades) it causes inflammation in the urinary tract.
Does anyone have any info on that?
Oh, BS, I’ve been drinking coffee over 50 years and I still have dementia (or so I’m told).
You didn’t drink enough. You need at least 8 coffees a day to get most of the positives from it. However, next week they will say, “No coffee is terrible for memory”. Such is a pattern for everything these days.
That is a brilliant way to look at it. I most never thought of it that way before. Thank you. I will share that because I am very impressed with the explanation and it makes sense.
My grandparents and parents had coffee on all day. When someone visited, regardless of time, they were offered coffee. I’m not that bad but I drink at least a pot a day. Lol
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