Recent research suggests that coffee may have protective properties against Parkinson's disease.

 

According to recent studies, those who drink coffee have a decreased risk of Parkinson's disease than people who don't. These results remained unchanged when smoking and alcohol usage were taken into account. Neurology reported the research findings.

 
Parkinson's disease is a neurological condition that worsens over time and mostly impairs motor function. It happens as a result of dopamine-producing neurons in the substantia nigra, a particular region of the brain, dying off. Tremors, stiffness, decreased mobility, and balance issues are common symptoms that get worse with time. Parkinson's disease patients may also have non-motor symptoms like depression, difficulty sleeping, and cognitive decline in addition to their motor symptoms.

At present, the exact factors that contribute to the onset of Parkinson's disease remain incompletely understood. Nonetheless, research has shown that those who regularly participate in head-impacting sports and other activities, including boxing, are more likely to get the disease. Research has also indicated that people with Parkinson's disease had lower amounts of caffeine and its two main metabolites, theophylline and paraxanthine.

Based on these results, Yujia Zhao, the study's author, and her colleagues observe that coffee is the psychoactive beverage that is drank worldwide the most. It has a substantial caffeine content as well. In light of this, they decided to use longitudinal data to look at the connection between drinking coffee and the chance of getting Parkinson's disease.

The data gathered from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) cohort study includes participant responses about coffee use, according to these researchers. More than 500,000 participants from ten European nations have been enrolled in the EPIC, an ongoing longitudinal study, between 1992 and 2000. The purpose of the EPIC project is to investigate the connection between noncommunicable diseases (diseases that are not thought to be contagious) and nutrition. Participants in the study ranged in age from 35 to 70 at the beginning.

The data from the EPIC4PD substudy, which examined Parkinson's disease, was examined by the study's authors. 184,024 people from Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Italy who took part in the study for an average of 13 years made up this participant subset.

These people answered questions about their diet, including ones about coffee use, smoking, drinking, degree of education, and physical activity. The Parkinson's disease statistics were verified by movement disorders specialists and derived from the subjects' medical records. A small subset of research participants gave blood samples so that the amounts of caffeine metabolites—substances produced by the body during the processing of caffeine—in the blood plasma could be measured.
The study's findings revealed that, out of all the participants, 285 women and 308 men (less than 1%) acquired Parkinson's disease. Coffee use was indicated by 93% of research participants. The Netherlands participants drank the most coffee (about 500 milliliters daily), whereas those from Italy and Spain drank the least (about 100 milliliters daily). Men, smokers, younger people, and those with higher alcohol use rates were the ones who drank the most coffee.

Comparing those who drank no coffee at all to those who drank the most, the 25% who drank the most had a nearly 40% lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease. Relative to people who did not drink coffee, the risk reduction varied by nation and was between 63% and 5% for all coffee consumers. Men and women showed about equal strength associations with coffee drinking and Parkinson's disease, with the connection appearing to be slightly stronger in nonsmokers.
This study, which followed participants for more than 20 years in one of the biggest longitudinal cohorts globally, showed an inverse relationship between the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) and use of caffeinated coffee. The study authors concluded that coffee showed exposure-dependent neuroprotective effects, with those in the highest coffee consumption group having a nearly 40% lower risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) than non-consumers.

A thorough analysis of plasma caffeine and its metabolites that were prospectively monitored supported this finding. Strong inverse relationships between the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) and caffeine and its main metabolites were found in these investigations.

 
The study clarifies the connections between Parkinson's disease and coffee drinking. It should be mentioned that no firm cause-and-effect conclusions can be made from the data due to the study's design. Furthermore, there was potential for reporting bias because coffee consumption was measured using self-report questionnaires.