Caffeine prevents multiple sclerosis in mice

Cornell researchers say that mice receiving caffeine equivalent to one person drinking 6 to 8 cups of coffee a day are protected from the development of experimental autoimmune encephalitis ( EAE), a pathology similar to multiple sclerosis in humans.

Caffeine is a well-known adenosine receptor inhibitor, and researchers believe that these results show the importance of this molecule in allowing immune cells to enter the system. Central nervous system in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (CNS) and it occurs when the body's immune system attacks and damages nerves in the brain and in the spinal cord. . Infection of immune cells into the brain and central nervous system rarely occurs in healthy people without multiple sclerosis (MS).

What has allowed these immune cells to enter the central nervous system tissue of people with multiple sclerosis is still a mystery. In previous studies, Dr. Margaret S. Bynoe was convinced that adenosine molecules were responsible for this infection .

Adenosine is widely present in the body and they play an important role in many biochemical processes such as energy metabolism and deep sleep. Early studies by the researchers found that mice lacking CD73, enzymes necessary for extracellular adenosine biosynthesis, do not suffer from mouse sclerosis (EAE disease). .

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Further studies of immune cells in CD73-deficient mice have led researchers to believe that CD73's ability to synthesize extracellular adenosine plays an important role in the development of disease like multi sclerosis .

This helps explain why adenosine is found near cells, but how do these compounds get into the central nervous system cells? Because adenosine must bind to its receptors to affect a cell, the researchers argue that adenosine receptor activation could allow immune cells to infect the brain and spinal cord. . To test that view in the study presented at the 2008 Experimental Biology Conference, people turned to caffeine.

Dr. Jeffrey H. Mills, associate professor of science at the lab of Dr. Margaret S. Bynoe, presented the results achieved at the 2008 Experimental Biology Conference on April 7, 2008. The results of the report are part of the US immune researchers' scientific program.

The stimulating effects of caffeine on the central nervous system (CNS) on a large area because it binds to receptors such as adenosine, thus preventing the ability to affect the central nervous system cells of adenosine. The mice given caffeine water were protected from EAE development, a form of multiple sclerosis.

Dr. Bynoe concluded that these experiments showed that there is a need for CD73 and adenosine receptor signaling to effectively enter the central nervous system (CNS) in the early and developing stages of the disease. EAE in mice as well as during the development of multiple sclerosis in humans.