Who doesn’t love a good cup of coffee or tea?
Beyond being comforting beverages, a study from Singapore reveals they might just have a link to keeping us lively as we age.
Led by Professor Koh Woon Puay from the National University of Singapore, this research keeps an eye on over 12,000 people’s health and habits for 20 years, focusing particularly on their caffeine consumption and physical condition.
A Sip Through Time: Tracking Caffeine and Physical Health
Starting with adults aged between 45 and 74, the research spanned two decades, asking participants about their caffeine habits from coffee, tea, soda, and even chocolate.
Other aspects like their general diet, physical activities, medical history, and more were also put under the microscope.
Over the years, participants were periodically checked on, and their physical condition was assessed in various ways, like measuring their handgrip strength and observing their mobility through tests like the timed up-and-go (TUG) test.
Physical frailty, a condition often associated with aging that includes aspects like unintentional weight loss, feeling exhausted, moving slower, and physical weakness, was a key interest.
With a particular definition in place (involving at least two out of four components: significant weight loss, exhaustion, slowness, and weakness), researchers explored how the participants’ caffeine habits might relate to their physical vitality in older age.
Brewing Insights: The Findings
The participants’ caffeine came mostly from coffee (84%) and tea (12%), with a big chunk – 68.5% – enjoying coffee daily.
The more detailed data showed that among these coffee drinkers, about 53% had one cup a day, 42% indulged in two to three cups, while a minimal 5% consumed four or more daily.
The results were intriguing: those who enjoyed their coffee or tea (black or green) regularly in midlife seemed to have a smaller chance of becoming physically frail as they aged.
More precisely, those who drank at least four cups of coffee per day or had tea daily were significantly less likely to experience physical frailty compared to their non-caffeine indulging counterparts.
This association was consistent, whether it was coffee, black tea, or green tea, signaling that perhaps the caffeine was the influential factor here.
Pouring Over the Why: Possible Explanations
Diving deeper into the ‘why’, past research has shown that caffeine can encourage muscle cell growth and enhance muscle weight – at least in mice. But coffee and tea bring more to the table than just caffeine.
They’re also sources of polyphenols, which are antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds. Polyphenols have a history of being associated with a lower risk of various diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and obesity – all of which can contribute to physical frailty.
Although this study offers a fascinating peek into potential links between our favorite beverages and our physical state in old age, Prof Koh emphasizes that we’re not at the bottom of the coffee pot just yet.
Further studies are needed to affirm these findings and explore whether it’s the caffeine itself or perhaps other compounds in coffee and tea that might be the champions of our later-life vitality.
Thus, while sipping our warm brews, the scientific community continues to explore the depths of how such simple, everyday habits might just influence our quality of life as the years roll by.
If you care about nutrition, please read studies about why vitamin K is so important for older people, and this snack food may harm your heart rhythm.
For more information about nutrition, please see recent studies about vitamin that may protect you from type 2 diabetes, and results showing this common chemical in food may harm your blood pressure.
The research findings can be found in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.
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