Study Says Coffee May Repel Parkinson’s

A new study published Wednesday suggests coffee may prevent Parkinson’s disease, the degenerative brain disorder that affects more than 1 million Americans.

How a product that makes people jittery could keep them from getting a disease that gives them tremors is not examined in the study of 8,004 Japanese American men in Hawaii.

But the researchers said the benefits are probably due to caffeine--apparently the more, the better--and they suggest some theories about how it might work.

Outside experts said that if the findings hold up, they could lead to ways to treat Parkinson’s more effectively or even prevent it.

The study found that men who didn’t drink coffee were five times more likely to develop Parkinson’s than those who drank the most--4 1/2 to 5 1/2 6-ounce cups a day. Non-coffee drinkers were two to three times more likely to get the disease than men who drank 4 ounces to four cups a day.

The researchers said it is uncertain whether their results would hold true in women and other ethnic groups.

The study was published in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Assn. It was led by Dr. G. Webster Ross, a neurologist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Honolulu.

Ross said it is possible that heavy coffee drinkers have a brain composition that may make them resistant to Parkinson’s. Previous studies have found low rates of Parkinson’s in “thrill-seeking” people who tend to engage in high-risk behavior like smoking and heavy drinking, and heavy coffee drinking also fits that personality profile, he said.

But he also suggested that caffeine may somehow protect against the nerve cell destruction that causes Parkinson’s.

Still, Ross said it is too early to recommend coffee as a treatment.

“Hopefully, this will lead to more basic research on caffeine and its effect on areas of the brain affected by Parkinson’s disease,” Ross said.

Ross said his study was larger than similar previous research and took into account other factors that could explain the findings, such as cigarette smoking, which has also been linked to a decreased Parkinson’s risk.

Paul Carvey, director of the neuropharmacology research laboratories at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago, said the study is important because it traced the benefits to caffeine, showing similar results with caffeine-laden foods other than coffee.

Parkinson’s is usually associated with aging, though it has made headlines recently with actor Michael J. Fox’s disclosure that he was diagnosed seven years ago at age 30. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and Muhammad Ali also have Parkinson’s.

The disease involves gradual deterioration of nerve cell clusters that make the chemical dopamine, which helps control muscle movements. Ross and colleagues speculated that caffeine might increase dopamine levels.

Symptoms of Parkinson’s include hand and head tremors, loss of balance and stiffness.