Cuppa' Joe?

I recently came upon a little tidbit of information that linked caffeine to the prevention of MS so, I decided to look into it...

The effects of caffeine on MS have only been studied using mice so far.  Researchers gave our rodent friends the equivalent of 6-8 cups of coffee per day and found that this prevented them from developing the animal-model version of MS.  Poor things; I can only imagine their little running-wheels going 24/7 during the study!

Anyway, I'm going to hit you with a bit of science here to explain why caffeine has been shown to ward off MS. 

There are four building-block molecules that make up our DNA, one of which is called adenosine.  Adenosine normally latches on, or binds to the adenosine-receptors of our cells.  After this happens, T-cells/immune cells are activated and cross through the blood-brain barrier into our central nervous systems (brain & spinal cord).  The T-cells then begin wreacking havoc and causing lesions & inflammation, otherwise known as Multiple Sclerosis.  Simple right?!  ha ha

Well, caffeine apparently works to stop this process in it's tracks.  Those sneaky little caffeine molecules bind to the adenosine-receptors first, preventing anyone else from getting in there.  This stops the whole chain reaction and prevents T-cells from travelling into the central nervous system in the first place.

This sounds great...for mice.  This whole study needs to be conducted on humans to determine if caffeine will prevent T-cells from getting into our central nervous systems too.  If so, the hope is to develop a drug that will degrade adenosine or prevent it from being formed altogether, thus preventing the T-cells from being activated at all.

There is a problem with this 'easy-fix' approach though...I mean, it is MS, did you expect it to be easy?!

Turns out that there are adenosine receptors throughout our entire bodies.  So, a drug would have to be created that targeted the adenosine in our central nervous systems only.  Enormous undertaking to say the least.

If you're not into lining up in the Starbuck's queue 8 times per day, I suggest you wait for further research.  If you're up for it, I'd be happy to research human-sized running wheels for you.  Let me know...