From a New York Times arti­cle today:

A team of Swedish and Danish researchers tracked cof­fee con­sump­tion in a group of 1,409 middle-age men and women for an aver­age of 21 years. During that time, 61 par­tic­i­pants devel­oped demen­tia, 48 with Alzheimer’s disease.

After con­trol­ling for numer­ous socioe­co­nomic and health fac­tors, includ­ing high cho­les­terol and high blood pres­sure, the sci­en­tists found that the sub­jects who had reported drink­ing three to five cups of cof­fee daily were 65 per­cent less likely to have devel­oped demen­tia, com­pared with those who drank two cups or less. People who drank more than five cups a day also were at reduced risk of demen­tia, the researchers said, but there were not enough peo­ple in this group to draw sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant conclusions.

The arti­cle goes on to observe that there may also be a cor­re­la­tion between cof­fee con­sump­tion and decreased risk of type 2 dia­betes and Parkinson’s dis­ease. All I know is that if this is true then my con­sump­tion of a pound and a half of cof­fee a week is all worth it.

Original arti­cle link via New York Times.