Posted on 11/07/2002 4:23:03 PM PST by blam
Coffee drinkers have lower diabetes risk
00:01 08 November 02
NewScientist.com news service
Drinking a lot of coffee may give people a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a preliminary study.
After analysing over 17,000 Dutch men and women, researchers found that those who drank seven or more cups of coffee a day were half as likely to develop the disease than those who drank two cups or less. The study was led by Rob van Dam while at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and Environment in Bilthoven.
A spokesperson for Diabetes UK says that although they will not be advising people to drink seven cups of coffee a day at this stage, the results are surprising and dramatic.
The results may be welcome news for heavy coffee drinkers, as scientists have previously reported they are unusually sensitive to pain, prone to panic disorders and more likely to develop heart disease.
Magnesium and potassium
Type 2 diabetes is largely associated with sedentary lifestyles and used to appear mainly in older people. But as levels of obesity have increased in children, so too has the prevalence of the disease.
Sufferers experience increased blood glucose levels as their bodies either do not produce enough of the hormone insulin, which is responsible for the uptake of blood glucose by cells in the body, or their cells are less sensitive to insulin.
Caffeine is known to lower insulin sensitivity in the short term, so it would not be an obvious remedy for type 2 diabetes. But Van Dam points out that the long term affects of caffeine are unknown. Coffee contains other components, he notes, such as chlorogenic acid, magnesium and potassium, which could improve insulin sensitivity.
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Weblinks
Dutch National Institute for Public Health and Environment
Diabetes UK
The Lancet
His team assessed the effects of drinking coffee over a period of seven years. The reduced risk for coffee drinkers was particularly surprising because risk factors for the disease, such as a less active lifestyle, were more common in that group.
Edwin Gale, at Bristol University, UK, thinks it is difficult to pin the reduced levels of type 2 diabetes on increased coffee consumption when behavioural forces could be at work. For example, heavy coffee drinkers might be less inclined to go see their doctors, he says.
Van Dam acknowledges that their findings need to be replicated and that the mechanism by which coffee may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes needs elucidation. His team now plan to assess the affects of drinking decaffeinated coffee over long periods of time.
Journal reference: Lancet (vol 360, p 1477)
Nicola Dixon
I drink a lot of coffee too. My doctor told me this week that I am a good candidate for type-2. Excercise helps.
I know a whole famuly that is diabetic.
I was DXed at 36 when I was a six or eight cup a day consumer. I guess I was just "unlucky".
Boy, I'd sure like to see the correlation he could come up with for that one.
They have a name for it: The feast or famine gene.
It's common in many species. You store fat readily because there is a natural period when food is not plentiful. Unfortunately for those of us with it, there is always a ready supply of food. It's another example of our primal genes getting messed with by our modern intellectual achievements.
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