Moderate Mocha Coffee Consumption Is Associated with Higher Cognitive and Mood Status in a Non-Demented Elderly Population with Subcortical Ischemic Vascular Disease.

Francesco Fisicaro,Manuela Pennisi,Giuseppe Lanza,Carla Vagli,Giovanni Pennisi,Rita Bella,Mariagiovanna Cantone,Raffaele Ferri

doi:10.3390/nu13020536

Abstract

To date, interest in the role of coffee intake in the occurrence and course of age-related neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders has provided an inconclusive effect. Moreover, no study has evaluated mocha coffee consumption in subjects with mild vascular cognitive impairment and late-onset depression. We assessed the association between different quantities of mocha coffee intake over the last year and cognitive and mood performance in a homogeneous sample of 300 non-demented elderly Italian subjects with subcortical ischemic vascular disease. Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Stroop Colour-Word Interference Test (Stroop T), 17-items Hamilton Depression Rating Scalfe (HDRS), Activities of Daily Living (ADL), and Instrumental ADL were the outcome measures. MMSE, HDRS, and Stroop T were independently and significantly associated with coffee consumption, i.e., better scores with increasing intake. At the post-hoc analyses, it was found that the group with a moderate intake (two cups/day) had similar values compared to the heavy drinkers (≥three cups/day), with the exception of MMSE. Daily mocha coffee intake was associated with higher cognitive and mood status, with a significant dose-response association even with moderate consumption. This might have translational implications for the identification of modifiable factors for vascular dementia and geriatric depression.

Highlights

The progressive aging of the population has led to an increased rate of some agerelated diseases, such as cognitive impairment and dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD), as well as some late-onset neuropsychiatric disorders
As an “umbrella term”, vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) encompasses a wide range of cognitive deficits due to neurovascular disorders, such as those resulting in subcortical ischemic vascular disease (SIVD), secondary to lacunar infarcts and vascular white matter lesions (WMLs) [1,2]
In order to disentangle the association of coffee intake from that of other parameters that were found to be significantly different in the subject groups, we built an analysis design by using the above-mentioned General Regression Models module, using age, sex, education, smoking and coffee consumption as independent predictors, and Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Hamilton Depression Rating Scalfe (HDRS), Stroop T, Activities of Daily Living (ADL), and Instrumental ADL (IADL) as dependent variables

Summary

Introduction

The progressive aging of the population has led to an increased rate of some agerelated diseases, such as cognitive impairment and dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD), as well as some late-onset neuropsychiatric disorders (i.e., geriatric depression). As an “umbrella term”, vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) encompasses a wide range of cognitive deficits due to neurovascular disorders, such as those resulting in subcortical ischemic vascular disease (SIVD), secondary to lacunar infarcts and vascular white matter lesions (WMLs) [1,2]. SIVD is commonly associated with late-life depression, referred to as “vascular depression” [3], a clinical-radiological condition which has been found to be different from early-onset major depression [4,5]. Neuroinflammation and chronic hypoperfusion have been linked to the vascular processes underlying cognitive dysfunction and late-life depression, eventually influencing their development and course [7,8,9,10]

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