San Francisco stores have geared up with unprecedented security measures to try to deter shoplifters in the crime-ridden city.

Grocery stores, pharmacies, and other stores have installed extreme security devices and paid for private security guards to combat the rise in rampant theft over the last few years.

Supermarket chain Safeway installed exit gates at self-checkout lines in some of its Bay Area grocery stores, which require customers to scan their receipts before walking out the door. The exit gates are similar to those in mass transit systems.

“Recent changes were made at select Safeway stores in the Bay Area to maintain a safe and welcoming shopping experience for our customers and associates given the increasing amount of theft,” a Safeway spokesperson said in a statement Monday.

“Those updates include operational changes to the front end of the stores to deter shoplifting. Like other local businesses, we are working on ways to curtail escalating theft so we can ensure the wellbeing of our employees and foster a welcoming environment for our customers. These long-planned security improvements were implemented with those goals in mind,” the Safeway spokesperson said.

A Walgreens in northern San Francisco locked its freezers with chains in response to shoplifters hitting the store 15 to 20 times a day, according to an employee.

A local ABC7 reporter witnessed multiple shoplifters at the Walgreens in just an hour.

“It’s San Francisco, bro,” one of the shoplifters told the outlet about why he did not pay.

A police sergeant in the area told the reporter the shoplifting is “getting worse” at that particular Walgreens.

Part of the reason for the shoplifting increase is Proposition 47, a 2014 voter-approved law that made the theft of merchandise under $950 in value a misdemeanor that is often not investigated.

Most Californians support changing Prop 47 to reinstate penalties for certain thefts, according to a 2022 poll.

In 2021, businesses in San Francisco’ Union Square hired private security to combat the “smash and grab” robberies that plagued the area.

Gump’s, a luxury home decor retailer, hired private security and capped how many shoppers could be in the downtown store at one time around Christmas, 2021.

“It is a cost that is not sustainable long-term for our business or for any business,” Marc Capalbo, Gump’s vice president of operations, said at the time. “The lack of leadership, the lack of accountability for those that are committing these crimes have got us to this situation.”

Electronics store B8ta closed for seven months in 2021 after a man took two laptops at gunpoint.

When B8ta reopened, the store spent $30,000 a month on around-the-clock security guards with bulletproof vests, more money than its entire payroll or rent.

Shoplifting spiked 20% in San Francisco between 2019 before the pandemic and 2022, according to the California Department of Justice.

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A string of major retailers have recently fled their downtown San Francisco locations, where foot traffic has thinned. Mall company Westfield, AT&T, Nordstrom, Whole Foods, and two hotels have all shuttered locations in the city recently.

While overall crime in San Francisco is slightly down this year, certain types of violent crime are up, according to police data.

Murder is up 10% to 22 murders so far. Robberies are up 15% to 1,150 robberies so far. Car thefts are up 5% to 2,889 thefts.

Crime often accompanies the city’s stubborn homelessness and drug problems.

The drug crisis is still raging in San Francisco, although overdose deaths have dropped from their all-time high in 2020 during the thick of the pandemic. Homelessness has only gotten worse since before the pandemic. About 38,000 people are homeless in the Bay Area on a given night.

A new study published Wednesday shows that espresso could help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers at the University of Verona in Italy found that compounds in espresso beverages, including caffeine, could slow or prevent the brain disorder.

The researchers concluded, “We have presented a large body of evidence that espresso coffee, a widely consumed beverage, is a source of natural compounds showing beneficial properties in ameliorating … pathologies,” such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The researchers said that “numerous studies” showing that “coffee consumption exerts a [protective] action against two of the most common neurodegenerative diseases, i.e., Parkinson′s and Alzheimer′s,” prompted them to perform the study on espresso because of its high concentration of coffee molecules.

While experts are still uncovering the processes that cause the diseases to develop, most researchers have pointed to a protein in the brain called tau, which helps stabilize structures in that area of the human body. 

However, when tau clumps in the brain, it interrupts the communication between nerves, causing memory loss, poor judgment, wandering, and personality changes — all symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

The study used in-vitro and cell culture tests and found that four compounds found in espresso — caffeine, trigonelline, genistein, and theobromine — reduced the length of the tau fibers, preventing them from clumping. As the concentration of caffeine increased, tau proteins could not form larger sheets, indicating that the progress toward Alzheimer’s might be slowed.

Although more research is needed, the researchers said their preliminary findings would “pave the way toward finding or designing other bioactive compounds against … Alzheimer’s,” according to a press release.

6.2 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, and the disorder is the fifth leading cause of death among the elderly, claiming 134,242 American lives in 2020. 

The study was funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research and follows several studies aimed at linking coffee consumption with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

A 2018 study by Canadian researchers showed that dark roast coffee is also beneficial for brain health and could work to prevent both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. 

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However, Howard Bauchner, editor-in-chief of the JAMA peer-reviewed medical magazine, told USA Today at the time that coffee studies should be “taken with a sip of skepticism.” He said that most coffee studies are association studies, meaning they don’t necessarily prove that coffee is the reason for the finding. 

Recent advances in drug therapies have given Alzheimer’s patients and their families hope. A new medication, donanemab, reduced the risk of progressing from mild to moderate dementia by 40% in a recent study and is expected to be approved by the FDA this fall.

If approved, donanemab would join Lequembi and Aduhelm as the third FDA-approved drug treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Gil Rabinovici, the director of the University of California San Francisco’s Memory and Aging Center, praised the advancements, saying they were “just the opening chapter in a new era of molecular therapies for Alzheimer’s disease.”