Science Just Gave Coffee Drinkers Some Very Good News About Their Brains

EXPERT OPINION BY BILL MURPHY JR., FOUNDER OF UNDERSTANDABLY AND CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, INC. @BILLMURPHYJR

Brazil made of coffee beans. Photo: Getty Images

When I come across a massive new study suggesting something I’m already doing every single day might be good for me, I’ll pay attention.

Today’s habit: Coffee. I start every morning with a protein shake — and because I really don’t like the taste of protein shakes, I follow it up immediately with coffee.

Two or three cups, before all is said and done. I’ve been doing it long enough that it’s less a habit than a system.

Now comes a new study in JAMA — one of the largest and longest-running yet — suggesting that two to three cups of caffeinated coffee a day is associated with an 18 percent lower risk of developing dementia.

Winning in the Attention Economy

The research was led by Yu Zhang, a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health epidemiologist and research trainee at Mass General Brigham, with collaborators from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

It drew on two of the most extensive long-running datasets in American medicine: the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.

The combined sample: 131,821 participants, tracked for up to 43 years, with repeated diet assessments and cognitive evaluations along the way.

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