Coffee and Good Genes Could Provide Parkinson's Prevention

(Oct. 1) -- Your daily cup(s) of coffee might be helping to stave off Parkinson's disease. Assuming, that is, you're also lucky enough to have the right genetic makeup.

At a meeting of the World Parkinson Congress on Thursday, researchers presented breakthrough findings that help explain why coffee, and other caffeinated beverages, seem linked to a lower risk of developing the disease.

By evaluating the genetic makeup of 4,000 study participants, half of whom are afflicted with Parkinson's, scientists pinned down one gene -- called GRIN2A -- that works in conjunction with caffeine.

An estimated 25 percent of the population carries the gene.

It's a decade since research first established a connection between coffee and Parkinson's prevention. In 2001, a study out of Harvard followed nearly 100,000 men and women for several years.

Men who drank four to five cups of coffee a day slashed their Parkinson's risk in half compared with those who didn't consume any. The protective effect persisted in women, but to a lesser extent.

Right now, the results help explain why new drug therapies in clinical trials, which are based on caffeine, aren't as effective as scientists had hoped.

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"I think it is about time we brought genetics into the design of clinical trials for Parkinson's disease," lead researcher Haydeh Payami told reporters.

And while researchers still need to confirm their results in larger study samples, the gene-caffeine combination might one day help prevent or treat the disease. In a select pool of people, that is.

"The new results suggest the possibility of screening patients for their genetic makeup to determine if they are likely to benefit from drugs that target the brain cells affected by caffeine," Payami said.

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