Stockholm - Drinking moderate amounts of coffee may protect people from dementia in later life, according to a study by Finnish and Swedish researchers.

Coffee drinkers ran a lower risk of dementia in middle age and Alzheimer's disease later in life compared to those who drank little or no coffee.

The researchers at the University of Kuopio, Finland, and Karolinska Institutet of Stockholm, Sweden, studied 1,409 individuals aged 65 to 79 who were members of a group surveyed in 1972, 1977, 1982 or 1987 and who completed a re-examination in 1998.

The average follow-up was made after 21 years. A total of 61 people were identified as demented of whom 48 had Alzheimer's disease.

The people were divided into three categories and moderate coffee drinkers, who drank three to five cups of coffee per day, had the lowest risk, the study suggested.

"The finding needs to be confirmed by other studies, but it opens the possibility that dietary interventions could modify the risk of dementia/AD," lead researcher, associate professor Miia Kivipelto, from the University of Kuopio and Karolinska Institutet said in a statement.

The full study is entitled "Midlife Coffee and Tea Drinking and the Risk of Late-Life Dementia: A Population-based CAIDE Study" and was published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease 16(1).

The abstract is available on : http://www.j-alz.com/issues/16/vol16-1.html. (dpa)