Espresso linked to fighting diseases like Alzheimer's

Whether it’s in an expresso martini or a coffee shop cup, the intense shot of caffeine might do more than wake you up.

New research published Wednesday in the American Chemical Society’s “Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry” shows espresso compounds can inhibit tau protein aggregation. That’s the process experts believe is part of the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

Espresso is made by forcing hot water at high pressure through finely ground coffee beans. This makes a concentrated extract, or espresso.

About half the population of the United States drinks coffee each day.

“Many coffee compounds display beneficial properties in alleviating disease symptoms, for instance by reducing cognitive and memory impairment, as antioxidants, or by preventing amyloid formation and neurotoxicity,” the study authors wrote. “The coffee beverage consists of more than a thousand compounds; the beverage as a whole and its components show a bioactive role, and therefore, coffee is considered a potential functional food.”

The precise mechanics that make these conditions are unknown. However, it’s believed the protein tau is a big reason. Tau proteins help stabilize brain structures in healthy people. When some diseases develop, those proteins can clump together into what are called fibrils.

That led some researchers to posit that stopping the clumping could lessen symptoms of a disease. The next step was to see if espresso compounds could stop tau aggregation in a laboratory environment.

Researchers took espresso shots from beans bought in a store. Then, using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, they determined the beans’ molecular identity and structure.

The researchers opted to focus on caffeine and trigonelline, both alkaloids, as well as genistein, also found in soy products and theobromine, a compound also found in chocolate. Molecules from these substances, along with espresso extract, were incubated with a form of the tau protein for almost two days.

“As the concentration of espresso extract, caffeine or genistein increased, fibrils were shorter and didn’t form larger sheets, with the complete extract showing the most dramatic results,” the researchers said in a statement accompanying the study. “Shortened fibrils were found to be non-toxic to cells, and they did not act as ‘seeds’ for further aggregation.”

Other experiments showed caffeine and espresso extract could bind pre-formed tau fibrils.

More research is needed. But the preliminary findings are encouraging to researchers, who say they could form the first steps toward locating or creating other bioactive compounds against diseases like Alzheimer’s.

“Due to the pathological significance, tau becomes an important therapeutic target,” the study authors wrote. “Preventing tau aggregation becomes a potential strategy to cure neurodegenerative disorders associated with tau.”

They added: “A reliable method to detect and monitor tau aggregation would accelerate understating tau aggregation mechanism and also expedite the development of tau-targeted therapeutics.”

The American Chemical Society, which publishes the journal this study appears in, is a nonprofit chartered by Congress. The society’s mission is to advance chemistry and its practitioners for everyone’s benefit, the release states.

According to the release, the society is a global leader in the promotion of excellence in science education, as well as access to chemistry-related information and research. However, it does not perform research itself and instead partners with others.

The authors of the study received funding from the Italian Ministry of University and Research.