Can't find your car keys? Forgot the name of the movie you saw last week? If you find your memory is slipping, remember your morning coffee! A growing body of research suggests the morning booster can help protect the aging brain.
It's the brew that can boost the brain and now new research suggests coffee's key ingredient caffeine may help protect the aging brain in women!
The study found women 65 and older who drank three cups or more a day had fewer age-related memory problems compared to those who had a cup or less a day. But there was no benefit for men and they don't know why.
"We really need to be cautious in how we interpret this study," said Jim Lane, Ph.D., a caffeine researcher at Duke University.
Dr. Lane has been studying the health effects of caffeine for more than 25 years.
"We don't know that caffeine actually improves mental function or prevents decline in functioning," Dr. Lane said.
The Cleveland Clinic's Dr. Ronan Factora agrees.
"It's a lot of coffee, it's a lot of caffeine, about 300 milligrams a day," Factora said. "And this doesn't even take into account the caffeine that you get from things like caffeinated beverages."
Bottom line, coffee's role as a memory booster for the aging brain is still brewing.
And don't worry if you don't like coffee, researchers say that women who drank tea got the same memory boosting benefits.
The research is published in the Journal of Neurology.
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