And the mice that drank regular water? They lost more and more of their memory and thinking skills. So does this mean that drinking lots of coffee or tea or even soft drinks will prevent you from getting Alzheimer’s? Could reversing memory loss caused by Alzheimer’s be as simple as drinking more coffee? That remains to be seen. But at least one previous study found that among a test group of people in Portugal, those with Alzheimer’s drank less coffee over the past twenty years than people without Alzheimer’s. Several other uncontrolled clinical studies have found that caffeine slows memory loss during normal aging. The researchers are planning clinical human studies to see if caffeine’s benefits for memory addled mice translate to people. If so, caffeine could be an important way to combat Alzheimer’s–a disease that affects nearly half of Americans older than 85.