Coffee And Parkinson's Disease

[tex]

Hi All,

No, coffee doesn't cause Parkinson's disease — according to research, it may help to prevent it. In fact, researchers claim that 2 or more cups a day can reduce the chances of developing Parkinson's disease by 40 %. Apparently, caffeine prevents the loss of nerve cells. How about that? But of course, it's not enough to drink coffee, or some other natural source of caffeine, such as (gasp) chocolate. Noooooooooooooo. Nosiree, that would be too sensible. What we desperately need to do is to develop a drug to do the job, as is so ineloquently described in the following quote, taken from the article at the link below:

“One reason we need to develop a drug rather than use caffeine, which can be taken so cheaply, is that we need an effect that is larger than that which can be obtained with caffeine, without the side effects,” said Bertil Fredholm, a Swedish researcher who has studied caffeine’s effects for more than 40 years, in a Skype interview.

Say what? The research shows that 2 cups of coffee reduces the odds of developing Parkinson's disease by 40 %. As drugs go, that's a pretty impressive level of efficacy. My guess is that no one will be able to develop a (relatively safe) drug that will do significantly better, without introducing significant or even life-threatening side effects.

So the real reason for developing a drug to deliver caffeine is (as always) MONEY/GREED. Everyone knows that utilizing coffee (or any other conventional type of food) as a source of caffeine is way too cheap (that's even mentioned in the quote above) — because most people are going to drink coffee anyway, regardless of any health benefits. So we gotta develop an expensive prescription drug in order to make people feel as though they're actually doing something to improve their health, doncha know (and the painful dent in their wallet will help to verify that feeling ). Researchers are smart enough to realize that a lot of people still naively think that drugs are the best way to improve their health. After all, they're doctor-recommended, so what could be better than that.

Is this general attitude of the medical research industry pathetic, or what? Apparently most medical researchers don't realize that if more caffeine is needed than can be found in 2 cups of coffee, some people can actually tolerate more than 2 cups of coffee (believe it or not).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-1 ... entia.html

Every time I read a self-serving comment such as that, where some researcher proposes developing a drug to replace whole food, my respect for the medical research industry ratchets down by another notch. Currently, researchers with that attitude are sitting just above pond scum on my respect scale, but I'm not sure how long they will be able to hold that position.

Tex

[Gabes-Apg]

Woo hoo
I am protected for ever!!!!

And yep, I can definitely handle more than 2 cups a day......
At 50cents a cup for my merlo coffee, it is the cheapest supplement I have !!!

I wonder if big pharma will figure out a way to patent a different delivery method for coffee???
Who knows maybe they will patent IV coffee infusions?????

[carolm]

I was scared to read this. I am so addicted (and thoroughly enjoying) my Kuerig coffee maker. I couldn't have given it up even if it said Parkinson's was caused by coffee.

Like Gabes, I am protected forever!

Thanks for the article, Tex.

Carol

[JFR]

I have 2 cups of strong black coffee every morning, fresh ground and made in a french press. It's the one thing I just can't give up. Nice to know it's medicinal.

Jean

[Leah]

Wish I could :(

[wmonique2]

Tex,

Every time I read a self-serving comment such as that, where some researcher proposes developing a drug to replace whole food, my respect for the medical research industry ratchets down by another notch. Currently, researchers with that attitude are sitting just above pond scum on my respect scale, but I'm not sure how long they will be able to hold that position.

LOL. Priceless.

thanks for making us laugh.

Monique

[tex]

Since caffeine supposedly prevents the loss of nerve cells, research should be forthcoming to announce that caffeine is also protective against Alzheimer's disease. And I wouldn't be surprised if someone demonstrates that it might also help to prevent the development of multiple sclerosis, and possibly other diseases.


Monique,

Thanks. I hope that I didn't insult any pond scum with that comment.

Tex

[tex]

Carol,

Funny that you should mention that appliance. I was never a coffee drinker until about a year ago. I just never developed a taste for it, and I didn't see any point in burning valuable daylight, sitting around waiting for it to perk, or waiting for it to cool, or wasting my time sipping it, etc. I never seemed to have time for that, so I always just grabbed a caffeinated soft drink, instead, whenever I wanted a caffeine "fix". Back then, my breakfast was almost always Carnation Instant Breakfast, which took only a few seconds to mix, so I was out the door, while everyone else was sitting around waiting for the skillet and the coffee pot to heat up.

Gee, I wonder why I developed MC.

I even tried coffee back when I was on a restrictive diet (after I had cut out everything that contained corn, including HFCS), but it didn't work — it promptly sent me to the bathroom. LOL. After being in remission for 8 or 9 years though, I was back to drinking 1 or 2 colas per day, sweetened with cane sugar, not HFCS (which was a huge improvement over my pre-MC quota of roughly a half-dozen or so per day). Anyway, I decided that it was time to try to ditch the colas and switch to coffee, in an attempt to try to salvage some of what little health I might still have remaining, so I bought one of those Kuerig marvels of modern technology.

As they say, the rest is history. The Kuerig eliminates all the hassle, and it makes awesome coffee. It's also hard to beat for making either hot or iced tea. So now I'm up to 2 cups a day on the coffee, and down to zero soft drinks, (other than tea), and I have plenty of time to sip it while reading my email and new posts on the board.

And like Gabes, it's probably just a matter of time before I'll be drinking 3 or more cups per day, and the researcher mentioned in the quote in my first post, will need to start worrying about both Gabes and me ingesting too much caffeine, due to overdosing on coffee, and trying to spoil his plans to get rich from the sales of some expensive caffeine-laced drug.

Tex

[JFR]

The Kuerig eliminates all the hassle, and it makes awesome coffee.

I grind coffee beans fresh every morning in a Zassenhaus manual grinder, heat the water in an electric kettle to 195 degrees and brew it in a French press timing it for 4 minutes. No hassle, just a comforting and familiar morning ritual and the coffee tastes great. I've never had Keurig so I don't know how it compares. I get my beans from a local coffee roaster. I not only wouldn't change a thing about my routine I don't think I could. I've made so many changes to my eating routine but this coffee routine stays constant. It functions something like a security blanket I believe.

Jean

[MaggieRedwings]

I would be hard pressed to live without my Keurig. We actually have another when that we use when travelling. By the way the best price and bang for the buck is bigcatcoffee.com

Have used them for years and we have had our Keurigs for over 8 years now.

Love, Maggie

[Fern]

I am amazed that so many of you can drink coffee! I recently had an email exchange with my son who is a BioEngineering PhD student that made me give up coffee. I had asked him to look into the whole mast cell thing and tell me what he thought. He came back telling me:

I've been poking around reading about different immune cell types, and apparently there are some very strong, very specific activators of mast cell degranulation. Alcohol and over the counter pain killers have strong, well-studied effects and the nature of the effect is that it makes it easier to trigger a response in the future as well as triggering a response right then and there. Alcohol in particular has such a strong effect that its actually used as a laboratory reagent to activate mast cells in vitro, and at much lower concentrations than your gut would experience after a drink. If mast cells are your issue, avoiding wine and ibuprofen would go a long way. Caffeine isn't great on that front either.

So, determined to put an end to my debilitating hot flashes (and suspecting that they are mast cell triggered), I quit drinking coffee. I had already stopped all alcohol, because waking up in the middle of the night with heart hammering and sweating wasn't worth the pleasure of enjoying wine with my meal. Eliminating the coffee definitely helped my gut and my hot flashes.

On the Keurig front, my mother used to use, and I adopted, the good old Melitta filter funnel that sits atop your mug. I call it the "poor man's Keurig." I have one as part of my camping equipment, too. I love that it is cheap and reusable (and light enough to carry in a backpack). The grounds and the filter go right into the compost after use.

[mzh]

I can drink coffee now and eat popcorn and melon again. Got to change the list in my profile. So glad coffee is good for us.

[tex]

Hi Fern,

Histamine is a dosage-dependent issue. IOW, histamine level is not a problem until we accumulate enough to exceed our reaction threshold, and then it causes symptoms. Most of us can tolerate small to moderate amounts of even high-histamine foods, as long as we don't overdo it. The key is limiting the total amount present in our body at any one time.

Also, as histamine sources, or histamine triggers go, caffeine is rather low on the list. All foods contain some level of histamine, and all foods trigger some level of mast cell response (degranulation), but while caffeine is not one of the lowest, it is certainly not one of the major sources of histamine, either, so most of us can tolerate it just fine. Coffee contains many, many chemical ingredients. I would guess that most people who experience an MC reaction in response to coffee, react not just to caffeinated coffee, but to decaf as well. Again, that's just a guess, but I have a hunch that it's a valid one, based on the personal experiences that I've seen described here on this discussion board.

And regarding wine, many of us are sensitive to sulfites, and wine is a natural source of sulfites. But the biggest problem is that sulfites are also added to most wines during fermentation/processing, so in some wines, the total sulfite content can be quite high. It's possible that you might be able to find a low-sulfite wine that suits your taste, so that you can continue to enjoy wine with your meals. Some people find that they can tolerate certain low-sulfite wines just fine (as long as they don't overdo the amount).

And if, for example, you can tolerate even just small amounts of distilled spirits such as vodka, gin, burbon, etc., then alcohol is probably not the problem, because compared with distilled spirits, wine has a relatively low alcohol level. It's also possible that you might be slightly to moderately sensitive to both alcohol and sulfites, and in that situation it could be the combination that causes problems for you.

Tex

[Fern]

Thanks for the response, Tex. I should have told you that the subject line of his e-mail was non-histamine mast cell degranulation. In other words, alcohol, NSAIDS and caffeine cause mast cell degranulation in the absence of histamine.

I have never had any noticeable problems with sulfites (no red wine headaches, etc.), but once I hit menopause, I couldn't tolerate any alcohol. I actually quite like a small whiskey and thought it might be better than wine, but, alas, it all poisons me.

Interestingly, my hot flashes went away when I eliminated alcohol and caffeine, but then I noticed that any carb consumption (starch or fruit -- I don't eat sugar) would trigger one. I have had to leave my beloved fruit behind and go palep to keep from flashing. Sometimes an herbal tea with a bit of spice will trigger one. It's just awful.

[Gabes-Apg]

Fern / tex
Another element is type of coffee you drink.

Many decafs (not all) go through a chemical process, same for some of the instant coffee's
My hunch is high chemical process = heightened histamine reaction.

I purchase the coffee beans already ground to the sizing for my stovetop percolator.

So far as histamine etc, there is no way that we can totally remove every possible trigger from our lives.... The way to a peaceful MC/histamine management plan, is do the best you can...
For me, and my mix of issues, there will always be niggly symptoms.