Have your competent? doctor verify what amount of coffee drinking will result in longer telomeres.
What has your doctor done to maintain your telomeres? NOTHING? Then you don't have a functioning doctor who could easily read up and implement telomere interventions.
telomeres (17 posts to November 2012)
telomere caps (1 post to January 2022)
telomere length (3 posts to April 2022)
More Benefits With Coffee, This Time in People With Severe Mental Disorders
Key Takeaways
- Severe mental disorders have been linked to faster cellular aging and shorter telomeres.
- In a cross-sectional study, drinking three to four cups of coffee a day -- but not more -- was associated with longer telomere length and lower biological age in patients with severe mental disorders.
- Researchers concluded that there may be health benefits to monitoring coffee consumption in this population to reduce intake above that level.
Drinking up to four cups of coffee a day was associated with longer telomere length in patients with severe mental disorders, according to a cross-sectional study.
Among 436 adults with schizophrenia spectrum and affective disorders, an inverted J-shaped curve was observed between telomere length, an indicator of cellular aging, and coffee intake, peaking at three to four cups and declining with five cups or more (F=3.29, P=0.02), reported Vid Mlakar, PhD, of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London, and colleagues.
Patients reporting no coffee consumption had significantly shorter leukocyte telomeres compared with those consuming up to four cups of coffee per day (F=6.13, P=0.01), they noted in BMJ Mental Health.
Based on an average of 70 base-pair reductions per year, "this represents 5 years younger biological age in the coffee drinking group, adjusted for confounders," including age, sex, ethnicity, years of tobacco use, and use of medications such as lithium, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers, Mlakar and team wrote.
The results suggest that, "in moderation, coffee consumption might have a positive effect but has a reverse effect in large doses," they concluded. "As people with severe mental disorders tend to have high coffee consumption, our study suggests potential health benefits by monitoring coffee consumption to reduce intake above the recommended daily dose" of four cups per day.
Uma Naidoo, MD, a nutritional psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, called the study "intriguing, but requires cautious interpretation."
"The fundamental limitation is the inability to establish temporal relationships or causality," Naidoo told MedPage Today. "Coffee consumption and telomere length were measured simultaneously, making it impossible to determine whether coffee intake preceded to followed telomere changes."
Although the authors controlled for multiple confounders, she noted that "reverse causation cannot be excluded. Patients with longer telomeres might have different health behaviors that enable higher coffee consumption."
These findings aligned with previous studies such as the Nurses' Health Study, Naidoo said, but "directly contradict the massive U.K. Biobank Study."
The most consistent finding across studies is that coffee type and preparation method matter more than quantity, with instant coffee appearing harmful, and filtered coffee neutral or beneficial, she added. No information on the type or preparation were available from this study.
Overall, "the evidence remains highly inconsistent and cannot support clinical recommendations about coffee consumption for telomere health," Naidoo said.
Shorter Lifespan
People with mental health disorders tend to have a lifespan 15 years shorter than those without these disorders, Mlakar and colleagues noted. This premature mortality has been linked to a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease and certain cancers, conditions often associated with advanced age. Research has suggested that this potential accelerated rate of aging may relate to accelerated loss of telomeres in these patients.
Telomeres are structures at the ends of human chromosomes, made up of repeating TTAGGG nucleotides, "whose role is to guard DNA during replication," the authors wrote. Telomere loss occurs in everyone, but previous research has shown that telomeres are shorter in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder versus unaffected groups. The reason for these differences is unclear, but telomeres have also been shown to be sensitive to environmental factors including diet.
Previous research has pointed to the benefits of coffee, such as improvements in cognitive acuity, and reduced risks of neurodegenerative diseases, obesity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, several types of cancer, and all-cause mortality. However, other potential negative effects including sleep problems, gastrointestinal disorders, and arrhythmia have led regulatory agencies, including the FDA and the U.K. National Health Service, to recommend limiting consumption to 400 mg of caffeine per day, equating to about four cups of coffee.
Despite evidence suggesting a faster rate of telomere attrition in severe mental disorders, as well as higher rates of coffee consumption and smoking in psychiatric populations, "there is a lack of literature examining such an association," Mlakar and colleagues noted.
The Norwegian TOP study included 436 patients with schizophrenia spectrum (n=259) and affective disorders (n=177), including bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder with psychosis. Mean age was 26-32, and the majority were men.
Patients self-reported their coffee consumption in cups per day: no coffee (44 patients), one to two cups (117 patients), three to four cups (110 patients), or five or more cups (133 patients).
Leucocyte telomere length was measured in blood using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction.
Of the total sample, 77% smoked, and those in the group with the highest coffee consumption had smoked significantly longer than the other groups. Tobacco-associated chemicals, including nicotine, may upregulate liver enzymes associated with caffeine metabolism, the authors noted. Although they adjusted for smoking in this analysis, the increased caffeine metabolism may confound the dose-response relationship, Naidoo pointed out.
Mlakar and team speculated that the potential benefit with coffee may come from its antioxidant or anti-inflammatory properties, but noted that they did not have data on peripheral antioxidant or inflammation levels in this study.
The study received funding from the Medical Research Council and the Research Council of Norway.
The study authors reported no competing interests.
Naidoo is an author of two books, "Calm Your Mind With Food," and "This Is Your Brain On Food."
No comments:
Post a Comment