LISBON, Portugal, May 17 (UPI) -- Caffeine may slow Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, researchers in Portugal said.

Alexandre de Mendonca of the University of Lisbon and Rodrigo Cunha of the University of Coimbra, both in Portugal, assembled a group of international experts to explore the effects of caffeine on the brain from multiple perspectives.


The collection of epidemiological and other studies corroborated by meta-analysis have been published as a special supplement in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

"A few epidemiological studies showed that the consumption of moderate amounts of caffeine was inversely associated with the cognitive decline associated with aging as well as the incidence of Alzheimer's disease," Mendonca and Cunha said in a statement. "This was paralleled by animal studies showing that chronic caffeine administration prevented memory deterioration and neurodegeneration in animal models of aging and of Alzheimer's disease."

Mendonca and Cunha have observed one of the most prevalent complications of Alzheimer's disease is mood change -- especially depression -- and they suggest caffeine might be a mood normalizer.