Your Coffee Cup May Hold the Answer to Preventing Type 2 Diabetes

Coffee drinker (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Coffee breaks have always been thought of as a kind of sanity-saver during an otherwise hectic day. However, researchers from the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee, an organisation that evaluates how coffee affects health, have issued a report that says your coffee break may also preserve your health. According to the Institute’s findings, drinking three to four cups of coffee daily may help to prevent type 2 diabetes.

The research was originally presented during a session at the 2012 World Congress on Prevention of Diabetes and Its Complications and the report not only summarizes the key points of the presentation, but also updates the findings. It was noted that one study demonstrated that drinking three to four cups of coffee daily was associated with about a 25 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, as compared with drinking none or less than two cups daily. Another study found that with each added cup of coffee, the risk for developing type 2 diabetes was lowered between 7-8 percent.

Some of the theories explaining the possible relationship between drinking coffee  and the reduced risk of diabetes include:

• Energy Expenditure Hypothesis – the caffeine stimulates metabolism and increases energy expenditure
• Carbohydrate Metabolic Hypothesis – coffee components affect the glucose balance within the body
• Other theories suggest coffee contains components that may improve insulin sensitivity by decreasing inflammation and oxidative stress on cells

While the researchers could establish a link between coffee drinking and preventing type 2 diabetes, they could not definitively say that drinking coffee was the reason study participants didn’t develop the disease. That would have to be established through controlled clinical trials, which the researchers are proposing.

 

 

~ by chasm63 on December 5, 2012.