Increased Consumption of Coffee Lowers the Risk of type 2 Diabetes

A latest study ties consumption of three or more cups of coffee a day to reduced risk of type 2 diabetes.

 Most Americans are big caffeine addicts and cannot start their day without their daily shot of coffee. If you are not a coffee lover you might consider joining the populace for its health benefit as a new study finds that moderate consumption of coffee lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes by 37 percent.

The latest study was led by Dr Frank Hu and Dr Shilpa Bhupathiraju, Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA, and colleagues.

The study reveals that consuming an average of one and half of cup of coffee per day over a four-year period lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes by 37 percent. Though studies conducted in the past have linked consumption of tea and coffee to a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, not much was known on how changes in consumption of coffee or tea influenced the risk of diabetes. In this study the researchers looked at the relation coffee and tea consumption and the risk of type 2 diabetes over 4 years.

The researchers worked on the observation data retrieved from three U.S. based studies.  The studies included the Nurses' Health Study (NHS), the NHS II and the Health Professionals. The studies were conducted from 1986-2006 and included young female nurses of ages 25-75. As a part of the study the researchers collected information on subject's diet, lifestyle, medical conditions and other chronic conditions. This information was taken every 2 to 4 years for 20 years.

Apart from this the researchers also looked at whether the link with the occurrence of diabetes differed in caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee. The researchers finally reported 7,269 incidents of type 2 diabetes and found that those who increased the consumption of coffee by over 1 cup a day over a 4 year period had 11 percent reduced risk of type 2 diabetes when compared to those who did not make any changes in the consumption of coffee.

Those who reduced their consumption of coffee by 1 cup or more saw a 17 percent increased risk of diabetes.

Those who had highest consumption of coffee were called high-stable consumers and they had 2 cups or more coffee every day. These people had 37 percent lower risk of diabetes than the low-stable consumers who drank just 1 cup per day.

The authors say, "We found no evidence of an association between 4-year increases in tea consumption and subsequent risk of type 2 diabetes. This finding may have potentially been due to the relatively low number of participants who made significant changes to their tea consumption over a 4-year period thereby limiting statistical power to detect true associations. The overall low levels of tea consumption in this group may also be responsible for these findings."

The changes in the risk for diabetes were seen for caffeinated coffee and not decaffeinated coffee.  

The authors conclude, "Changes in coffee consumption habits appear to affect diabetes risk in a relatively short amount of time. Our findings confirm those of prospective studies that higher coffee consumption is associated with a lower type 2 diabetes risks and provide novel evidence that changes in coffee consumption habits are related to diabetes risk."

The finding was documented in Diabetologia.