First and foremost, I’d like to say that I’m a big fan of green (and white) tea. On most days, I drink both organic coffee and organic white tea.

It does appear that coffee has unique properties that differ from those of tea. The higher caffeine content is only one of the many differences. Their respective antioxidant/phytochemical compositions mostly likely contribute to any anti-dementia activity as well.

The case for coffee’s protective effect seems to be growing stronger:

http://iospress.metapress.com/content/a423p6m256u26742/fulltext.html

There’s quite a lot of preliminary research that suggests that tea may be helpful as well. But the human data isn’t very extensive or very encouraging at this time.

http://bit.ly/bwB6Wr (animal study)

http://www.jnutbio.com/article/S0955-2863%2807%2900193-3/abstract (animal study)

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-4159.2009.06562.x/abstract (review)

http://iospress.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&issn=1387-2877&volume=16&issue=1&spage=85 (human population study)

Be well!

JP

The caffeine studies are promising, but would tea have the same results? I’m 49 y/o and have never had a cup of coffee in my life. Love my green tea though. However, my fear of Alzheimer’s is enough to turn me into a coffee drinker if necessary.

JP – great blog you have here. Not sure how I found you initially, but I’ve recently started following you on twitter, which is how I came across this report from last summer.

I agree that the source is very important. When possible, I try to only use organic coffee. I also drink or eat mostly organic cocoa. No diet sodas here or other sources of phosphoric acid in my diet.

Be well!

JP