People who enjoy a morning cup (or two) of coffee have an advantage health-wise, as it has long been tied to improved brain health.

Coffee helps to boost focus, increase levels of attention and alertness and improve learning and memory. And studies indicate it can delay dementia and lower the risk of Parkinson’s disease.

Sadly, all of coffee’s brain benefits have left tea lovers like me out in the cold — until now….

Coffee, tea and your brain

Two studies, presented at the recent Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC), indicate consumption of both coffee and tea could have benefits for the brain.

One that looked at 6,001 Health and Retirement Study participants in the U.S. found a link between drinking two or more cups of coffee a day and a 28 percent lower risk of dementia over seven years compared with drinking less than one daily cup.

Not unexpected, given previous study results. But the great news for tea lovers is that moderate tea drinking (up to two cups a day) was associated with a lower dementia risk compared with no tea consumption.

According to the researchers, when calculating total caffeine intake from both coffee and tea, they found participants in the highest quartile of caffeine consumption had a 38 percent decreased risk of dementia.

A second study presented at AAIC showed among 8,451 U.K. Biobank participants, daily coffee and tea consumption predicted fluid intelligence decline. Fluid intelligence is the ability to reason and generate, transform and manipulate different types of information in real time. You might say it’s a way to measure mental sharpness.

Nearly half (47 percent) of U.K. Biobank participants reported high tea consumption, drinking four cups a day or more, while 38 percent were moderate tea drinkers, and 15 percent didn’t drink tea at all.

By contrast, only 18 percent of the participants consumed high amounts of coffee, 58 percent were moderate coffee drinkers and 25 percent didn’t drink any coffee.

Tea and coffee support a sharp mind

According to the study, the decline in fluid intelligence was slower among older adults who drank one to three cups of coffee a day and those who never drank coffee, compared with those who drank four or more daily cups. This suggests too much coffee could potentially cancel out its benefits.

Things were a little different for the tea drinkers. Participants who never consumed tea had a greater decline in fluid intelligence than those who drank moderate (one to three daily cups) or high (four or more daily cups) amounts of tea.

These results “support the hypothesis that both coffee and tea intake may have a protective factor against cognitive decline, particularly for maintaining fluid intelligence,” says Dr. Kelsey Sewell of Murdoch University in Perth, Australia.

Both coffee and tea contain bioactive compounds, including caffeine. Sewell suggests that given the relationships found in the study, caffeine could be the potential mechanism in this case. However, she adds, further studies are needed to determine the neuroprotective mechanisms of the coffee and tea compounds.

The researchers noted that study participants self-reported their coffee and/or tea consumption, and the researchers didn’t have information about their coffee or tea habits during midlife.

But despite the need for more research, Sewell says this study indicates coffee and tea intake could contribute to the development of safe, inexpensive strategies for delaying onset and reducing incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.

The bottom line: whether your morning beverage of choice is coffee or tea, you can rest easier knowing it may be protecting you from cognitive decline. In the case of coffee, though, you may want to stop after that third cup to ensure its full benefits.

Sources:

Coffee-Dementia Link Continues to Unfurl — MedPage Today

Fluid Intelligence — ScienceDirect