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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Caffeine eases Parkinson's symptoms

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 08/4/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

TORONTO -- Drinking coffee may help people with Parkinson's disease to move with greater ease, although getting steady jolts of caffeine doesn't appear to alleviate the daytime sleepiness that affects certain patients, a study suggests.

In the Canadian-led study, researchers set out to see if caffeine could help overcome what's called daytime somnolence, a symptom that affects some patients with the progressive neurological disease.

While they didn't find an appreciable wake-up effect among subjects taking caffeine, the researchers were surprised to find java's potent ingredient appeared to enhance patients' mobility.

"What was significant was the movement improvement," said principal investigator Dr. Ronald Postuma, a neurologist at McGill University Health Centre's research institute. "And this was present both on motor symptoms, but also on the objective scoring in the motor exam."

To conduct the study, 61 people with Parkinson's disease who showed symptoms of daytime sleepiness and some motor impairment were randomly assigned to receive either a placebo pill or a caffeine tablet. Participants chosen for the study were not big coffee drinkers -- on average, they drank only one cup of joe per day.

Those in the treatment group took a pill containing 100 milligrams of caffeine twice daily for three weeks, then 200 milligrams twice daily for three weeks -- the equivalent of between two and four cups of coffee per day.

After six weeks, those getting caffeine supplements averaged a five-point improvement in Parkinson's severity ratings compared to those getting placebos, the researchers report in Wednesday's online issue of the journal Neurology.

"The biggest problem with Parkinson's disease that affects people's lives is the slowing of movements," Postuma said from Montreal. "You move less, you have smaller movements and you do them more slowly. And then you also have some stiffness and rigidity. And those were the things that improved."

Postuma said what's exciting about the findings is the motor-related benefits from caffeine are similar to those seen with medications used to treat Parkinson's, a disease caused by the loss of dopamine-producing cells in the brain.

"But in this case, we got it with a natural product," he said, noting caffeine in coffee, tea, colas and other products has long been ingested by humans without any major adverse health effects.

"And then its cost is minimal. You can buy it in Canada, in a tablet over the counter at the pharmacy, for 10 cents a pill. (That's) a lot cheaper than a cup of coffee, in fact -- and a huge cost advantage compared to other pharmaceutical products."

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 4, 2012 A13

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