Drinking coffee may help people with Parkinsons disease move with greater ease, although getting steady jolts of caffeine doesnt appear to alleviate the daytime sleepiness that affects certain patients, a study suggests.

In the Canadian-led study, researchers set out to see if caffeine could help overcome whats called daytime somnolence, a symptom that affects some patients with the progressive neurological disease.

While they didnt find an appreciable wake-up effect among subjects taking caffeine, the researchers were surprised to find that javas main ingredient appeared to enhance patients mobility.

What was significant was the movement improvement, said principal investigator Dr. Ronald Postuma, a neurologist at McGill University Health Centres research institute. And this was present both on motor symptoms, but also on the objective scoring in the motor exam.

To conduct the study, 61 people with Parkinsons disease who showed symptoms of daytime sleepiness and some motor impairment were randomly assigned to receive either a placebo pill or a caffeine tablet. Participants chosen for the study were not big coffee drinkers on average, they drank only about one cup per day.

Those in the treatment group took a pill containing 100 milligrams of caffeine twice daily for three weeks, then 200 milligrams twice daily for three weeks the equivalent of between two and four cups of coffee per day.

After six weeks, those getting caffeine supplements averaged a five-point improvement in Parkinsons severity ratings compared to those getting placebo, the researchers report in Wednesdays online issue of the journal Neurology.

The biggest problem with Parkinsons disease that affects peoples lives is the slowing of movements, Postuma said from Montreal. You move less, you have smaller movements and you do them more slowly. And then you also have some stiffness and rigidity.

And those were the things that improved, he said. So patients would move faster, their movements were more fluid, they can get dressed quicker, they can walk quicker. Their muscles are less stiff because their underlying disease is essentially improved.

The caffeine group averaged a three-point improvement in the speed of movement and amount of stiffness compared to the placebo group. However, there were no changes in reported quality of life, depression or sleep quality in participants.

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Caffeine helps Parkinson’s patients move: study