Coffee Associated with Lower Risks of Liver Cancer and Deadly Cirrhosis

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GNN has reported on studies that have found coffee to improve health outcomes in a variety of disease realms, including heart disease, dementia, and even cancer in an observational finding.

Now, a new study of hundreds of thousands of people compiled by Cedars Sinai Medical Center has identified that the liver may be a prime beneficiary of coffee consumption.

Embarrassingly, it took until 2016 for the WHO to remove coffee from the list of possible carcinogens, even as a mountain of evidence had built up that the beloved breakfast drink was not only not harmful, but actually a health drink.

Coffee has previously been identified as having hepato-protective effects—that is, protective to the liver—in a study of half-a-million individuals with known coffee consumption levels from the UK Biobank.

Compared to non-coffee drinkers, coffee drinkers had a 21% reduced risk of chronic liver disease, a 20% reduced risk of fatty liver disease, and a 49% reduced risk of death from chronic liver disease.

This new examination used the same massive data set, which followed some 500,000 people aged 40 to 69 for decades, recording a wide variety of health data. By 2023, 30,000 researchers had registered to use the UK Biobank data, and over 9,000 peer-reviewed articles based on it had been published.

In this analysis, Hyunseok Kim, assistant professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai, and his colleagues, Shelly Lu and Ju Dong Yang—all three of whom are medical doctors—looked at cases of the life-threatening liver disease called cirrhosis, as well as liver cancer, and liver-related death.

Compared to non-coffee drinkers, the team’s analysis found that coffee drinkers had a 32% lower risk of cirrhosis, a 47% lower risk of developing liver cancer, and a 42% lower risk of liver-disease-related death.

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Additionally, blood protein data pointed in the same direction. Coffee drinkers had higher levels of proteins associated with healthy liver function. This reinforced the finding which might otherwise have been dismissed as a coincidence.

Still, 5, 4, or even 3 cups of coffee will be intolerable to some who are more susceptible to caffeine, although in an interesting finding, the 5 cup a-day effect was found in consumers of decaf as well, suggesting that the coffee’s flavonoid and phenol compliment may be behind the effects on the liver and caffeine.

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“Our findings support moderate coffee consumption for people who already enjoy and tolerate it well,” said study senior author Ju Dong Yang, medical director of the Liver Cancer Program at Cedars-Sinai.

“However, we would not recommend that someone begin drinking coffee solely for liver protection based on this study alone. Prevention should continue to focus on maintaining a healthy weight, limiting alcohol, exercising regularly, and managing blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol.”

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