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this study looks great .... and almost unbelievable
Let's take a cup of your favorite drink and enjoy !
A jolt of java may do more than get you going in the morning. Drinking four or more cups of coffee a day appears to help prevent diabetes, Harvard researchers report.
It's not the first time that a study has suggested that the popular brew may protect against the blood sugar disorder that affects at least 17 million Americans. Last year, Dutch doctors reported that heavy coffee drinkers are half as likely to develop diabetes as people who consume two cups or less a day.
Hu, associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, presented the research Tuesday at the American Diabetes Association 63rd Scientific Sessions.
Hu wasn't convinced that coffee could help prevent diabetes because short-term studies suggest that caffeine interferes with the body's ability to handle blood sugar -- by reducing the body's sensitivity to insulin. Insulin is one of the main hormones that keeps blood sugar in check.
So the researchers set out to see if they could replicate the findings in the 100,000-plus men and women whose health they have been following for about two decades.
It's Good for Men and Women
The more coffee the men and women drank, the more it seemed to help prevent diabetes. The findings held true even after accounting for other risk factors linked to diabetes, including age and weight.
For men:
* 1 to 3 cups of coffee a day dropped the risk of diabetes in men by 7%.
* 4-5 cups a day cut the risk of diabetes by 30%.
* 6 or more cups of coffee a day dropped the risk of diabetes by more than 50%.
For women:
* No effect on diabetes prevention was seen for women who drank 1 to 3 cups a day.
* Four cups or more a day reduced their risk of diabetes by about 30%.
* 6 cups did not seem to be any better than four cups.
Decaf or Regular?
Caffeine might be coffee's best-known ingredient, but it's not the only one, Hu notes. Coffee houses dozens of other substances that could affect disease risk. There's magnesium, niacin, potassium, and even such antioxidants as tocopherol.
Hu's team reasoned they could tease out the effects of caffeine on diabetes prevention by also looking at tea and decaf coffee.
"Decaf has the same amount of these other substances, but less caffeine," Hu says. "Tea has other substances and is relatively low in caffeine."
Four or more cups of decaf coffee a day was associated with a modest effect on diabetes prevention. But the findings could have been due to chance, Hu says.
Tea had no impact on diabetes prevention, the researchers found.
The researchers then looked at total caffeine intake from coffee, sodas, and other foods, and found it, too, appeared to help prevent diabetes. Men and women who consumed the most caffeine were about 25% less likely to develop diabetes compared with those who consumed the least.
I'm a Believer
The new findings have made a believer out of at least one former skeptic, and a key one at that: Terry E. Graham, PhD, who performed one of the studies showing caffeine reduces the body's ability to handle blood sugar.
"When the Dutch study came out, I was shocked," says Graham, chairman of human biology & nutritional sciences at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Canada. "But now, with this second study that shows the same thing, you start to believe it."
The Harvard study is more thorough, he says, with more accurate data about the participants' coffee habits over 10 to 15 years. "Plus, they evaluated tea and decaf, which the first study didn't."
Some clues into why the short-term and long-term studies arrive at such different results might come soon, he says. Vanderbilt University researchers who are studying compounds produced when coffee beans are roasted appear to have homed in on some with disease-fighting properties.
By Charlene Laino
Let's take a cup of your favorite drink and enjoy !
A jolt of java may do more than get you going in the morning. Drinking four or more cups of coffee a day appears to help prevent diabetes, Harvard researchers report.
It's not the first time that a study has suggested that the popular brew may protect against the blood sugar disorder that affects at least 17 million Americans. Last year, Dutch doctors reported that heavy coffee drinkers are half as likely to develop diabetes as people who consume two cups or less a day.
Hu, associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, presented the research Tuesday at the American Diabetes Association 63rd Scientific Sessions.
Hu wasn't convinced that coffee could help prevent diabetes because short-term studies suggest that caffeine interferes with the body's ability to handle blood sugar -- by reducing the body's sensitivity to insulin. Insulin is one of the main hormones that keeps blood sugar in check.
So the researchers set out to see if they could replicate the findings in the 100,000-plus men and women whose health they have been following for about two decades.
It's Good for Men and Women
The more coffee the men and women drank, the more it seemed to help prevent diabetes. The findings held true even after accounting for other risk factors linked to diabetes, including age and weight.
For men:
* 1 to 3 cups of coffee a day dropped the risk of diabetes in men by 7%.
* 4-5 cups a day cut the risk of diabetes by 30%.
* 6 or more cups of coffee a day dropped the risk of diabetes by more than 50%.
For women:
* No effect on diabetes prevention was seen for women who drank 1 to 3 cups a day.
* Four cups or more a day reduced their risk of diabetes by about 30%.
* 6 cups did not seem to be any better than four cups.
Decaf or Regular?
Caffeine might be coffee's best-known ingredient, but it's not the only one, Hu notes. Coffee houses dozens of other substances that could affect disease risk. There's magnesium, niacin, potassium, and even such antioxidants as tocopherol.
Hu's team reasoned they could tease out the effects of caffeine on diabetes prevention by also looking at tea and decaf coffee.
"Decaf has the same amount of these other substances, but less caffeine," Hu says. "Tea has other substances and is relatively low in caffeine."
Four or more cups of decaf coffee a day was associated with a modest effect on diabetes prevention. But the findings could have been due to chance, Hu says.
Tea had no impact on diabetes prevention, the researchers found.
The researchers then looked at total caffeine intake from coffee, sodas, and other foods, and found it, too, appeared to help prevent diabetes. Men and women who consumed the most caffeine were about 25% less likely to develop diabetes compared with those who consumed the least.
I'm a Believer
The new findings have made a believer out of at least one former skeptic, and a key one at that: Terry E. Graham, PhD, who performed one of the studies showing caffeine reduces the body's ability to handle blood sugar.
"When the Dutch study came out, I was shocked," says Graham, chairman of human biology & nutritional sciences at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Canada. "But now, with this second study that shows the same thing, you start to believe it."
The Harvard study is more thorough, he says, with more accurate data about the participants' coffee habits over 10 to 15 years. "Plus, they evaluated tea and decaf, which the first study didn't."
Some clues into why the short-term and long-term studies arrive at such different results might come soon, he says. Vanderbilt University researchers who are studying compounds produced when coffee beans are roasted appear to have homed in on some with disease-fighting properties.
By Charlene Laino
