Food Facts

Coffee And Tea May Lower The Chance Of Dementia In People With High Blood Pressure

• By Rich Health News Desk
• September 18, 2024

In a new study published in Scientific Reports, researchers looked at the link between drinking coffee or tea and the risk of developing dementia in people with high blood pressure. Dementia is a loss of mental abilities that makes daily life difficult. The study used data from 453,913 participants in the UK Biobank.

 

Background 

A third of adults around the world have high blood pressure, which is linked to a higher chance of dementia, especially Alzheimer's, a brain disorder that causes memory loss and cognitive decline. Lowering blood pressure could cut the number of people with dementia by 40%.

 

Caffeine and chlorogenic acid, which are found in coffee and tea, may help avoid dementia by protecting neurons and lowering inflammation. However, more study is needed to confirm how these drinks affect the risk of dementia in people with high blood pressure.

 

About the Research 

From 2006 to 2010, people from Wales, England, and Scotland aged 39 to 74 were asked to take part in the UK Biobank study, which is a big population-based study. The people who took part got physical exams and filled out questionnaires, and their health was constantly tracked through electronic records from general care, hospitalization, and death registries.

 

The UK Biobank has a lot of genetic and health information that is being used to look into how genes and lifestyle affect diseases in middle-aged and older people. The study follows the ethical guidelines in the Helsinki Declaration and was approved by the North West Multi-Centre Research Ethics Committee. All subjects gave their informed consent. 

 

Out of the 502,370 people who were initially chosen, some were not included because they did not have enough baseline data, blood pressure measurements, secondary hypertension, information on how much coffee and tea they drank, or a baseline diagnosis of dementia. This made a final group of 453,913 people who were followed for an average of 15.12 years, until April 2024.

 

Self-reported statistics, hospital records, and blood pressure readings were used to figure out if someone had hypertension. A food frequency questionnaire was used to find out how much coffee and tea people drank, and primary care and treatment records were used to find out if someone had dementia.

 

Cox proportional risk regression models were used to look at the link between drinking coffee, tea, or other caffeinated drinks and the chance of dementia in people with and without high blood pressure.

 

The Results of the Study

Out of the 453,913 people who took part in the study, 54.62% had high blood pressure. The average age was 72.39 years, and 94.13% of them were white and 54.33% were women. Over a follow-up period of 15.12 years, people with high blood pressure were more likely than people without high blood pressure to develop all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and vascular dementia.

 

People with high blood pressure also had a shorter median life time. People with high blood pressure were found to be significantly different from people without high blood pressure when it came to age, gender, race, education, occupation, smoking, diet, body mass index (BMI), alcohol use, physical activity, social relationships, and other health factors. People with high blood pressure had a higher chance of getting all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and vascular dementia after these factors were taken into account.

 

People with high blood pressure who drank 0.5 to 1 cup of coffee every day had the lowest chance of dementia from any cause.

 

However, there was no significant link between drinking coffee and the risk of Alzheimer's or vascular dementia in people with high blood pressure. Similarly, there was no significant link between drinking coffee and the risk of dementia in people who did not have high blood pressure.

 

People with high blood pressure who drank tea had a lower chance of all-cause dementia, especially those who drank four to five cups a day. In people who did not have high blood pressure, there was no link between drinking tea and the chance of dementia.

 

People with high blood pressure who drank both coffee and tea had a lower chance of all-cause dementia and Alzheimer's disease, especially those who drank moderate amounts of both. 

 

Compared to decaffeinated coffee, ground coffee was linked to a lower chance of all-cause and vascular dementia in both people with and without high blood pressure. The study didn't find a strong link between the temperature of hot drinks and the chance of getting dementia. 

 

In people with high blood pressure, drinking caffeine was linked to a lower chance of both all-cause and vascular dementia. People who drank moderate amounts of caffeine had the lowest risk.

 

On the other hand, there were no significant links found between caffeine intake and the chance of Alzheimer's or vascular dementia in people who did not have high blood pressure. 

 

Summary

In short, this study found that people with high blood pressure were more likely to develop dementia than people without high blood pressure. In the general population, drinking coffee and tea was linked to a lower risk of dementia. People with high blood pressure who drank 0.5 to 1 cup of coffee or 4-5 cups of tea every day had the lowest risk.

 

People with high blood pressure had a stronger link between drinking coffee or tea and the chance of both all-cause and vascular dementia than people who did not have high blood pressure.

 

Also, drinking ground coffee was linked to the lowest risk of both all-cause and vascular dementia. There was no link between the temperature of a hot drink and the risk of dementia.