Q&A: Coffee, tea may impact memory, cognition, motor function related to Alzheimer’s

Key takeaways:

• People with the APOE4 genotype have a greater risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease.
• Consumption of green tea may be beneficial for better memory retention and processing.

Consumption of certain teas and coffee may have positive effects on neural network maintenance that could bode well for the prevention of symptoms indicative of Alzheimer’s disease, according to research published in Nutrients.

Healio spoke with senior study author Auriel A. Willette, PhD, associate professor of neurology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Rutgers University, for his perspective on the relationship between coffee and tea consumption and connectivity within neural networks.

Healio: What was the impetus for analyzing tea and coffee consumption, compared with other beverages, to examine long term cognitive function?

Willette: Like our previous study looking at types of wine and associations with cognition, we were now interested in nonalcoholic beverages and the brain. Billions of people consume coffee and tea regularly.

In particular, for many East Asian countries, green tea has a deep cultural significance that is often tied to spiritual practices that cultivate health and mindfulness. The lead author, Dr. Tianqi “Tim” Li, and I were curious about how these different types of teas and coffees affected brain health in a multicultural country like the United Kingdom.

Healio: Why focus on sensory and motor processing aspects as well as on cognition?

Willette: While most of our focus in so called normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease is on cognition, our brains also process the whole world and move us through it. Something like gait — or how we walk, reach out and physically interact with objects and animals — seems simple. In reality, gait is incredibly complicated and involves many brain regions coordinating in harmony. Some of our earliest glimpses into Alzheimer’s disease may stem from problems with movement or sensory information. It was important, then, to look at all the brain networks for clues about the benefits or drawbacks of coffee and tea.

Healio: Can you provide more context on the APOE4 genotype and its role as a mitigating factor with tea/coffee consumption, memory and AD?

Willette: Apolipoprotein E, or APOE, is the strongest genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. APOE has two important sites in our genetic code, where mutations in that code introduce the risk.

There are basically three “flavors” of APOE: APOE2, APOE3 and APOE4. Having APOE2 means lower Alzheimer’s risk, but this variant is rare. The vast majority of people have APOE3, which gives you normal Alzheimer’s disease risk. If you have one copy of the APOE4 variant (or genotype) from your mom OR dad, you are at two to three times greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. If you have two APOE4 copies from your mom AND dad, you are at eight to 12 times greater risk.

In that context, it’s important to see how tea and coffee consumption vary depending on if you are genetically more or less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease late in life. For people with at least one genetic copy of APOE4, drinking more coffee was related to worse instead of better brain performance for a network involved in processing memories. Having APOE4 also meant that drinking more black tea was associated with less activity in this memory processing network.

So basically, if you are an APOE4 carrier, our study suggests cutting back on the coffee and black tea may be a good idea.

Healio: Your results arose from U.K. Biobank analysis. Can you speculate on what results may look like from analysis of a U.S.-based population?

Willette: The results would likely be similar.

In the U.K. Biobank, roughly 95% of adults are of white British or Irish ancestry. While the U.S. is trying to have more racial and ethnic diversity for these kinds of studies, most of them are roughly 80% to 95% non-Hispanic white. The only other major difference would be that Americans are much less likely to drink black tea, as there is a much more well-established culture surrounding black tea drinking in the U.K.

Healio: Would you suggest greater tea and coffee consumption for individuals with a genetic predisposition to AD?

Willette: Assuming that our results are causal and not just correlational, I think the safest bet is to just drink more green tea. It’s low-calorie, rich in antioxidants and other anti-aging properties, and at least based on our work, is related to more brain network activity for memory and some other types of brain processing.

Reference:

Willette AA, et al. Nutrients. 2024;doi:10.3390/nu16244303.

For More Information:

Auriel A. Willette, PhD, can be found at https://ifh.rutgers.edu/ and on X: @rutgersifh.