How daily doses of caffeine may battle multiple sclerosis

By Jim Killackey

Published: July 1, 2008

The same caffeine in your morning cup of coffee, afternoon soft drink or evening's chocolate ice cream dessert is being used by an Oklahoma City scientist to conquer the debilitating disease known as multiple sclerosis, or MS.

A new study co-authored by Linda Thompson of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation discovered that mice immunized to develop a condition like MS were protected from the disease by drinking caffeine.

"I'm totally amazed. This is an exciting finding, and I think it could be important for the study of MS and other diseases,” Thompson said.

The research, she said, has the potential for addressing medical difficulties associated with rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and other autoimmune diseases — conditions in which the body uses the weapons of its immune system against itself.

About 3,500 Oklahomans have MS, which often strikes women in their 20s and 30s, Thompson said.

Multiple sclerosis is a disorder of the central nervous system marked by weakness, numbness, and a loss of muscle coordination.

In the study, Thompson and other researchers followed the progress of mice that developed an MS-like condition.

They discovered that when the rodents consumed the equivalent of six to eight cups of coffee a day, they didn't develop the condition.

With mice, it stopped or slowed the progression of the disease, Thompson said.

The caffeine, Thompson explained, stopped adenosine — one of the four building blocks in DNA — from binding to an adenosine receptor in mice.

When adenosine couldn't bind to the receptor, it prevented abnormal T cells — white blood cells that play a central role in immune responses — from reaching the central nervous system and triggering the animal model for MS, she said.

While the results are heartening, Thompson said, there remains more work to be done for the prevention of multiple sclerosis in humans.

A retrospective study of people with MS to track their caffeine intake and the effects on the disease could be an important next step in the research process, Thompson said.

The research appears in today's editions of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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