Mar
01
2004

Less Diabetes With Coffee

By | Diabetes, Nutrition, Prevention

A Dutch Study has shown previously that coffee consumption was reducing the risk for developing diabetes. Now Dr. Salazar-Martinez and co-workers have confirmed this in a study involving even larger numbers of both men and women. This was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and the research team is from the Harvard School of Public Health, Channing Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. A total of 41,000 men and 84,000 women from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals’ Followup Study were followed between 12 and 18 years. 1,333 men and 4,085 women developed diabetes during the time of observation. All of the data was analyzed carefully by controlling for other factors such as obesity, smoking, high blood pressure etc. to be certain that the only difference in the observed groups was the amount of coffee consumed.

According to the authors the gender differences are probably unimportant and may have to do with the different sample sizes. However, as the graph shows clearly, with the consumption of around 4-5 cups of coffee per day there is a significant 30 % drop in risk to develop diabetes.

The Dutch Study showed a 50% drop in risk with 7 cups or more per day and the study here suggests a similar drop with 6 cups or more.

Less Diabetes With Coffee

Less Diabetes With Coffee

Dr. Frank Hu, associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, who co-authored this study stated that physicians should still recommend to patients first to exercise and to loose weight to control diabetes. It would be premature to recommend heavy coffee consumption to patients for diabetes control.

Diabetes risk decreases with coffee consumption (%reduction)
 Less Diabetes With Coffee1

This beneficial effect was also observed to a lesser extent with decaffeinated coffee, but not with tea. According to Dr. Hu caffeine, chlorogenic acid and magnesium likely play a role in the protective effect with regard to diabetes prevention. Further studies will be done to see whether diabetes patients who drink coffee have a better outcome when they develop a heart attack.

Reference: Ann Intern Med – 6-JAN-2004; 140(1): 1-8

Last edited December 8, 2012

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Nov
01
2002

New Research Shows That Coffee Drinking Is Healthy

By | Diabetes, Health, Heart Disease, Prevention

Forget what somebody may have whispered into your ear in the past,namely that coffee drinking would be bad for you. Dr. Rob M. van Dam and Dr.Edith J. M. Feskens from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in Bilthoven, theNetherlands, have recently completed a prospective study with a large number of participants.

The results were published in the Lancet 2002;360:1477-1478. The goal of the study was to see whether coffee consumption would have a positive or negative effect on the development of diabetes (type 2 or mature onset diabetes). Approximately 17,000 men and women were followed along over a period of time and 306 new cases of diabetes were detected. The average consumption of coffee was 5 cups per day. There was a striking difference between those who drank 7 cups of coffee per day and those who drank 2 cups or less per day: With 7 cups per day there was a 50 % LESSER risk of developing diabetes. The authors pointed out that it is known that some of the active ingredients in coffee are: the bioflavonoids, chlorogenic acid, the minerals magnesium and potassium, and vitamin B3.

New Research Shows That Coffee Drinking Is Healthy

New Research Shows That Coffee Drinking Is Healthy

Chlorogenic acid and magnesium have been known in the past to have a stabilizing effect on glucose metabolism thus preventing diabetes.The authors were surprised though about the magnitude of the diabetes protective effect. They suggested that
other authors should do further studies to confirm their findings and to attempt to pinpoint the mechanism of action. In the meantime they cautioned that it would be premature to recommend to increase coffee consumption for everybody.

Useful related link to a chapter of my free Internet based Nethealthbook: http://nethealthbook.com/health-nutrition-and-fitness/

Last edited October 25, 2014