Caffeinated coffee and tea: A few cups daily might prevent dementia.
By
Bernice Ntiamoah
Source: CNN
Reported by: Ntiamoah Bernice Mantebea
February 10, 2026
New research has shown that daily coffee or tea, especially the caffeinated kind, is associated with better cognitive health in the long term.
According to a study published in JAMA on Monday, those who take two to three cups of coffee or tea saw the biggest impact.
Midlife coffee drinkers showed roughly an 18% reduced likelihood of dementia in later years, compared to a 14% drop for tea drinkers, according to the senior author of the study, Dr. Daniel Wang, an assistant professor of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
Wang and his team found no similar advantage from decaffeinated versions in the data from over 130,000 participants in the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Previous research support the notion that caffeinated coffee promotes healthier aging overall, while both caffeinated coffee and tea are tied to reduced risks of diseases like heart disease.
The key message is that the evidence doesn’t show that you need to cut out your morning fix to stay healthy, said Dr. David Kao, the Jacqueline Marie Schauble Leaffer Endowed Chair in Women’s Heart Disease and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical School. He had no role in the recent study.