Research shows caffeine could help slow cellular aging
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, BGR may receive an affiliate commission.
Health experts tend to go back and forth on whether or not caffeine is actually good for you, or how much you should ingest every day. No matter which side you land on, there's no arguing that a cup of caffeine (in the form of coffee or any other liquid) has become a big part of many of our lives. And now, researchers say that caffeine could actually help with cellular aging.
According to a new paper published in Microbial Cell, caffeine may actually slow cellular aging by activating a primary energy-sensing pathway in your body called AMPK. The researchers involved in the new findings used fission yeast in lieu of human cells. When exposed to caffeine, they found that the AMPK activity in the yeast increased, allowing cells to better manage stress, repair their DNA, and even regulate their growth.
Today's Top Deals
Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales
Best Ring Video Doorbell deals
Memorial Day security camera deals: Reolink's unbeatable sale has prices from $29.98
This research follows closely on the heels of additional dives into whether or not coffee is good for you. As one of our primary sources of daily caffeine, the benefits of coffee have long been debated among the health community. This new development is deeper, though, as it looks at caffeine as a whole. Considering how much scientists have worked to try to get age-reversing medication, finding something that can help slow cellular aging could be a dream come true for some scientists.
The key to how caffeine helps with cellular aging comes down to the switch that it interacts with. However, instead of interacting directly with the trigger, a growth regulator called TOR (Target of Rapamycin), caffeine only interacts with AMPK, which helps cells cope with lower energy. The effect that caffeine has on AMPK seems to influence how cells grow, as well as how they repair their DNA.
Each of the attributes that caffeine has an effect on is tied to both aging and disease, which is why caffeine has long been heralded as being beneficial for health and longevity, at least in controlled amounts. Future research that digs deeper into this connection could help us understand the role caffeine plays in cellular aging even more.
More Top Deals
Amazon gift card deals, offers & coupons 2025: Get $2,000+ free
See the
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
Research shows caffeine could help slow cellular aging
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, BGR may receive an affiliate commission. Health experts tend to go back and forth on whether or not caffeine is actually good for you, or how much you should ingest every day. No matter which side you land on, there's no arguing that a cup of caffeine (in the form of coffee or any other liquid) has become a big part of many of our lives. And now, researchers say that caffeine could actually help with cellular aging. According to a new paper published in Microbial Cell, caffeine may actually slow cellular aging by activating a primary energy-sensing pathway in your body called AMPK. The researchers involved in the new findings used fission yeast in lieu of human cells. When exposed to caffeine, they found that the AMPK activity in the yeast increased, allowing cells to better manage stress, repair their DNA, and even regulate their growth. Today's Top Deals Best deals: Tech, laptops, TVs, and more sales Best Ring Video Doorbell deals Memorial Day security camera deals: Reolink's unbeatable sale has prices from $29.98 This research follows closely on the heels of additional dives into whether or not coffee is good for you. As one of our primary sources of daily caffeine, the benefits of coffee have long been debated among the health community. This new development is deeper, though, as it looks at caffeine as a whole. Considering how much scientists have worked to try to get age-reversing medication, finding something that can help slow cellular aging could be a dream come true for some scientists. The key to how caffeine helps with cellular aging comes down to the switch that it interacts with. However, instead of interacting directly with the trigger, a growth regulator called TOR (Target of Rapamycin), caffeine only interacts with AMPK, which helps cells cope with lower energy. The effect that caffeine has on AMPK seems to influence how cells grow, as well as how they repair their DNA. Each of the attributes that caffeine has an effect on is tied to both aging and disease, which is why caffeine has long been heralded as being beneficial for health and longevity, at least in controlled amounts. Future research that digs deeper into this connection could help us understand the role caffeine plays in cellular aging even more. More Top Deals Amazon gift card deals, offers & coupons 2025: Get $2,000+ free See the
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
Your morning coffee could help you stay young — but there's a catch
Could coffee be the liquid key to longevity? A new study reports that the world's most widely used stimulant can extend lifespan and affect how cells respond to genetic damage — though there's a potential complication. A team of researchers at Queen Mary University of London confirms that caffeine interacts with the systems that influence aging, DNA response and cellular stress. The team studied fission yeast, a single-celled organism that is analogous to human cells and uses similar pathways to manage energy, DNA repair and stress. Researchers measured the response of fission yeast to different forms of cellular stress, including DNA damage, toxic exposure and nutrient deprivation. Then they added caffeine to gauge how cells would respond. They found that while caffeine extended the lifespan of yeast, it also affected how cells responded to stress, particularly when the molecular systems that regulate stress were already activated. The findings were published this week in the journal Microbial Cell. The research team previously established that caffeine supports the longevity of cells by activating TOR (target of rapamycin), a biological switch that determines when cells should grow based on the availability of food and energy. According to the team, the TOR switch has been actively controlling energy and stress responses in living things for over 500 million years. In this latest study, the team learned that caffeine doesn't directly activate TOR, but rather influences it by activating AMPK, a cellular fuel reserve in yeast and humans. 'When your cells are low on energy, AMPK kicks in to help them cope,' said study senior author Charalampos (Babis) Rallis. 'And our results show that caffeine helps flip that switch.' The yeast model demonstrated that caffeine's influence on flipping that switch directly impacts how cells grow, repair their DNA and respond to stress — all of which relate to aging. Quite surprisingly, the team found that rather than protecting damaged DNA, caffeine amplified the damage. Typically, when a cell detects DNA damage, it stops dividing to repair it. However, researchers found that caffeine overrides this stop, allowing unhealed cells to continue dividing and making them more vulnerable to future damage. The team assured that this doesn't make your morning cup inherently dangerous. Caffeine's ability to alter how cells respond to problems can be positive or negative, depending on the situation. The team noted that the benefits of caffeine depend on the presence of specific proteins and pathways. The fact that caffeine's effects are neither universal nor automatic may help explain why previous studies exploring the link between caffeine and improved health have been inconsistent. 'These findings help explain why caffeine might be beneficial for health and longevity,' said John-Patrick Alao, the postdoctoral research scientist leading this study. 'And they open up exciting possibilities for future research into how we might trigger these effects more directly — with diet, lifestyle or new medicines.' The team acknowledged that because the study relied only on fission yeast, the findings may not directly translate to human cells. Coffee has long been lauded for its health benefits. Rich in antioxidants, it may enhance brain function. It's also been shown to increase alertness, aid in weight management, boost mood and potentially lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease. A 2018 study of nearly half a million British adults found that coffee drinkers had a slightly lower risk of death over 10 years than abstainers. Other research, encompassing more than 170,000 adults in the UK, proposed that those who drink between two and four daily cups of coffee, regardless of whether they have added sugar, live longer than those who don't drink coffee. A 2025 study led by researchers at Tulane University tied a morning brew to lower mortality rates than espresso later in the day. And three to five cups a day at midlife was associated with a decreased risk of Alzheimer's disease later in life, research determined. In addition to Alzheimer's, some studies found that java junkies have up to a 60% lower risk of Parkinson's disease. The more coffee they drank, the lower the risk.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Indigenous funeral urns discovered deep in Amazon rainforest
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Seven giant funeral urns dating to pre-Columbian times have been found deep in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. A fisher who works in this little-known waterlogged area of the middle Solimões region, along the upper course of the Amazon River, made the discovery after a 50-foot-tall (15 meters) Paricarana tree fell over, revealing the urns buried beneath it. The age of the urns is currently unknown; being Pre-Columbian, they're either centuries or millennia old. But their burial place — a human-made island — is extraordinary, although it's unknown if the culture that created the islands also crafted the urns, according to archaeologists at the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development (IDSM) in Brazil. Two of the larger ceramic urns — which measure up to 35 inches (89 centimeters) in diameter — contained human bones, while the others held a mixture of seeds and the remains of fish, frogs and turtles, said Geórgea Layla Holanda, an archaeologist at the IDSM who co-led the excavation. These seed and animal remains were likely part of the funeral ritual. The finds are "unprecedented," she said in a translated statement from the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The large urns do not have ceramic lids, "possibly because they were sealed with organic materials that decomposed," Holanda told Live Science. However, somewhat similar ceramic finds have been made elsewhere in the middle Solimões area. In these cases, urns would have lids "representing the head, with structures on the sides imitating limbs," she said. "The greenish clay pottery is rare but has been seen at other sites in the region," Holanda said. "We also found fragments with applied layers of clay on the exterior and painted red bands, though it is not yet possible to link these to any known ceramic styles." Related: Why are there no bridges over the Amazon River? Archaeologists already know that funerals involving urns generally included multiple stages, she added. "After death, the body was left in a basket in the river so that fish would consume the soft tissues, or it was buried in the ground," Holanda said. "Afterwards, the disarticulated [jumbled] bones were cremated and placed inside funerary urns, which symbolized a new body, a new skin. Finally, many Amazonian cultures buried these pots beneath their homes." The month-long fieldwork was planned in coordination with residents of the nearby community of São Lázaro do Arumandubinha, who first alerted researchers to the finding. "This was a community-driven demand, which understood the historical importance of these objects," Márcio Amaral, an archaeologist at IDSM who co-led the excavation, told Live Science. The São Lázaro do Arumandubinha community advised the excavators when to avoid seasonal river flooding, since the archaeological site, called Lago do Cochila (or Cochila Lake), lies in a flooded zone with no access to firm ground. To reach this remote area of the Brazilian Amazon, the research team traveled more than 24 hours by boat along the winding Amazon River from the institute's base in Tefé to the community, canoed 11 miles (18 kilometers) through flooded areas, and then walked for one hour through the forest along a trail the guides hacked out with machetes. Image 1 of 2 Excavation equipment and recovered artifacts were transported by canoe. Image 2 of 2 Researchers improvised scaffolding using wood and vines to carry out excavations in the Amazon rainforest. Because of the difficult conditions where the urns lay, excavations were carried out on a platform raised 10 feet (3 m) above the ground, built with wood and vines by community members. RELATED STORIES —12,500-year-old rock art 'canvas' in the Amazon reveals early Americans' connection with wildlife —Lasers reveal ancient settlements hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest —Archaeologists find vast network of Amazon villages laid out like the cosmos The funeral urns were buried about 15 inches (40 cm) deep on an artificial island built by ancestral Indigenous people. These people used earth to make this island as well as others in the region, primarily to protect the community from river floods, Amaral said. Now that the excavation is done, the researchers plan to date the urns. They also have additional local reports of urns at other archaeological sites in the region, including on nearby artificial islands.
