Here at the Wholesale Coffee Company, we do love a positive coffee story – and this tale from Paris takes some beating. In a recently published case study, researchers have released the details of an 11-year-old boy in Paris, diagnosed with a rare condition called ADCY5-related dyskinesia, which is an abnormality or impairment of voluntary movement and causes the sufferer to have severe shakes similar to those caused by Parkinson’s disease.
Scientists at the university hospital Hopitaux de Paris tried the unusual step of asking the young patient to drink coffee, as caffeine is a muscle relaxant and also helps boost an enzyme that helps muscles to contract. The results were extraordinary. One standard 60ml shot of espresso, which contains around 100mg of caffeine, stopped the shakes for around seven hours. Adding another cup and a half gave the youngster almost a whole day of relief from his condition. The child had been suffering with the condition since he was three, and by the time he was 11 was having up to 30 episodes a day which were having a severe effect on his everyday life.
During the trial, the boy’s parents accidentally gave him decaffeinated coffee and only realised with the alarming symptoms returned, as badly as before. Once they realised, they switched back to ‘full fat’ coffee and the symptoms were once more alleviated. The authors of the report said that the accident went to support the theory that caffeine was responsible for the improvement. They went on to say that caffeine ‘should be considered in all patients with ADCY5-related dyskinesia’.
We do like a positive story about the health benefits of coffee, which is a great mood booster and pick me up. If you’d like to discuss what we can do for your commercial coffee business, café, restaurant or office, then do give us a call on 0800 0121226 or browse our range of coffee supplies online.