Coffee may help prevent MS, study finds

                                                                  

Researchers have found that study participants who consumed four to six cups of caffeinated coffee per day were up to 30 percent less likely to develop multiple sclerosis (MS), a degenerative autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack its own myelin sheath, a fatty covering that protects nerve cell fibers in the brain and spinal cord.

Results of the large-scale study, which followed more than 6,700 study participants in both Sweden and the United States, were published this month in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.

While the study is not the first to look at the coffee – MS connection, it is the first of its size and international nature, and its results bolster findings of previous studies linking caffeine consumption to lower rates of MS.

Though study findings are promising, researchers caution consumers on guzzling gallons of coffee, as there is more research that is needed.

“I think from the MS perspective, there are too few data to support changing coffee intake at this time,” said, Dr. Ellen Mowry, assistant professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, according to Live Science.

And quantity of data, and accuracy of data are factors. Researchers in the Swedish/American study report that the study relied on the participants recollection of their coffee consumption, which could mean that there is some degree of error in reporting by study participants.

In addition to quantities consumed, another area requiring further research could determine whether the benefits that participants experienced were derived from the caffeine in coffee, or other compounds found in the beverage.

A 2008 study, conducted by the University of Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, showed that mice who were bred to develop a disease resembling MS, did not develop symptoms of the disease when the mice consumed high doses of caffeine.

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