Coffee Drinking Linked With Lower Type 2 Diabetes Risk

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By Natalie San Luis

If coffee is part of your morning routine, you may be reducing your risk of type 2 Diabetes every day -- at least that's according to a recent review of previous trials.

The review showed that people who drank coffee and caffeine, especially women, were less likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

Additionally, the researchers found that heavier coffee drinkers were more protected against diabetes than those who drank less.

Xiubo Jiang, Dongfeng Zhang and Wenjie Jiang, of the Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics at Qingdao University, conducted the review on coffee and type 2 diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body loses sensitivity to insulin, a substance that regulates blood sugar. As a result, people with Type 2 Diabetes have chronically high blood sugar.

To see how coffee drinking habits might affect a person's risk of developing type 2 diabetes, the researchers looked at previous trials and studies involving coffee and caffeine intake.

They looked at studies that exposed participants to either coffee or caffeine and looked for type 2 diabetes as an outcome. Additionally, they attempted to find out if the risk changed depending on the amount of coffee consumed.

The researchers examined 26 articles that discussed 31 total trials. A total of 1,096,647 people participated in the trials, and 50,595 participants developed type 2 diabetes.

The trials had follow-up periods ranging from 2.6 years to 24 years. Most of the trials followed up for more than 10 years.

The researchers determined that the participants who drank the most coffee were about 30 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes as those who drank the least amount.

They also found that the risk was reduced more for women who drank coffee than for men who drank coffee.

In terms of the dose response, the researchers found that the incidence of type 2 diabetes decreased by 12 percent for every two daily cups that the participants drank.

The risk reduction was similar for the 13 studies involving decaf coffee. Those who drank the most decaf were about 21 percent less likely to develop diabetes as those who drank the least.

Caffeine alone also led to a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes in the six articles that the authors reviewed. Those in the group that consumed the most caffeine were about 30 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes as those who consumed the least.

The researchers concluded that there may be an inverse relationship between coffee and caffeine consumption and cases of type 2 diabetes.

Additionally, the protection that coffee may offer against diabetes increased as participants drank more.

The authors of the review called for more long-term trials to confirm their findings.

This review was published in the European Journal of Nutrition ^[4] in October.

The authors declared no conflicts of interest and did not provide any information about funding sources.

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Coffee (Or At Least, The Caffeine!) Can Help You Proofread Better

The caffeine in coffee could actually help you to <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2011-23154-001/" target="_hplink">spot grammatical errors</a>, according to a new study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. Researchers found that <a href="http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/26/8498728-tank-up-on-java-unleash-your-inner-editor-says-study?ocid=twitter" target="_hplink">caffeine helped students to correct errors</a> in subject-verb agreement and verb tense, MSNBC reported. However, the caffeine still didn't seem to make a difference at identifying misspelled words -- sorry.

Coffee Could Lower Women's Depression Risk

Women who drink a few cups of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/27/coffee-cuts-depression-women_n_982122.html" target="_hplink">caffeinated coffee have a lower risk of depression</a> than women who don't drink any coffee, according to a Harvard study.

That research, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, shows that women who drink two to three cups of coffee a day have a 15 percent lower risk, while women who drink four or more cups of coffee a day have a 20 percent lower risk.

Study research Dr. Albert Ascherio <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/27/coffee-cuts-depression-women_n_982122.html" target="_hplink">told HuffPost</a> earlier that "caffeine is known to affect the brain," because it "modulates the release of mood transmitters."

"I'm not saying we're on the path to discovering a new way to prevent depression," he said. "But I think you can be reassured that if you are drinking coffee, it is coming out as a positive thing."

Coffee Could Save Your Brain

... Well, maybe. A study in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease suggests that there's something in coffee -- though researchers have yet to determine what exactly that "something" is -- interacts with caffeine to boost the levels of granulocyte colony stimulating factor (GCSF), a growth factor that seems to be able to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/24/coffee-could-ward-alzheimers_n_882931.html" target="_hplink">fight off Alzheimer's disease in mice</a>.

The amount of coffee needed in the study is equivalent to about four or five cups of coffee for humans.

Researchers said <a href="http://www.j-alz.com/press/2011/20110621.html" target="_hplink">GCSF likely has this effect</a> because it causes stem cells in the bone marrow to come into the brain and remove the beta-amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease. It also has a role in forming brain cell connections and creating new brain neurons, researchers said.

Coffee Could Lower Men's Prostate Cancer Risk

A Harvard School of Public Health study shows that men who drink six cups of coffee a day have a 60 percent decreased <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/18/coffee-can-cut-prostate-c_n_863472.html" target="_hplink">chance of developing a dangerous form of prostate cancer</a>, as well as a 20 percent decreased chance of developing any other kinds of prostate cancer.

The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, also shows that just <a href="http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/05/17/jnci.djr151.abstract" target="_hplink">drinking just some coffee a day</a> -- just one to three cups -- could still cut prostate cancer risk by 30 percent.

Coffee Could Ward Off The World's Most Common Cancer

New research presented at the American Association for Cancer Research conference shows that coffee could help to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/coffee-most-common-cancer_n_1025089.html" target="_hplink">ward off basal cell carcinoma</a>, the most common cancer in the world.

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School found that women who drink three or more cups of caffeinated coffee a day have a 20 percent lower risk of the skin cancer, while men had a 9 percent lower risk.

Decaf coffee didn't seem to have the same protective effect -- so "our study shows that the inverse association with BCC appears due to caffeine, not other components in the coffee consumption," study researcher Fengju Song, Ph.D., earlier <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/coffee-most-common-cancer_n_1025089.html" target="_hplink">told HuffPost</a>.

Coffee Could Protect You From Type 2 Diabetes

Drinking coffee is associated with a <a href="http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/22/2053" target="_hplink">lower Type 2 diabetes risk</a>, with more coffee consumption linked to a greater decrease in risk, according to an Archives of Internal Medicine review of studies from 2009.

In that review, researchers looked at data from more than 450,000 people in 18 studies, and found that for every extra cup of coffee drank a day, a person's risk of Type 2 diabetes decreased by 7 percent.

However, researchers cautioned that "the putative <a href="http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/22/2053" target="_hplink">protective effects of these beverages</a> warrant further investigation in randomized trials."

Coffee Could Decrease Parkinson's Risk

Drinking <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20182023" target="_hplink">a few cups of coffee a day</a> could lower the risk of developing Parkinson's disease by as much as 25 percent, according to a study published last year in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

In that review of studies, which was published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, researchers examined 26 studies that involved 125,000 British people, to find that <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7815087/Coffee-can-cut-chances-of-developing-Parkinsons-disease-according-to-new-research.html" target="_hplink">two or three cups of coffee</a> seemed to have the optimal effect, The Telegraph reported.