Coffee could reduce obesity and risk of type 2 diabetes: study

Health

By Brooke Steinberg

March 15, 2023 | 9:57

Making coffee a part of your daily grind can benefit your health.

A new study published in the journal BMJ Medicine suggests that regular coffee consumption may reduce body fat and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

The researchers wanted to see if coffee drinkers were immune to type 2 diabetes because of their caffeine intake or for other reasons, such as being middle class and being able to afford a mode. healthier life.

This study looked at nearly 10,000 people with genetic traits — such as the CYP1A2 and AHR genes — that affect how the body handles caffeine intake using a statistical technique called Mendelian randomization, which is a tool that studies a relationship between a trait and an outcome. .

People with these genetic variants are associated with slower caffeine processing and metabolism and typically drink less coffee while having high levels of caffeine in their blood.

The same group of people were found to have lower body mass index, body fat, and risk of type 2 diabetes, which obviously points to caffeine as the culprit.

About half of the same group of people with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes was due to their lower BMI.

Some evidence suggests that caffeine makes the body burn more fat and/or makes people feel full, which leads them to eat less, and that being leaner reduces the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

About 1 in 10 Americans is affected by diabetes, and about 90 to 95 percent of them have type 2 diabetes, according to the CDC. Type 2 diabetes most often affects people over the age of 45.

“These results suggest that caffeine may be linked to lower body mass index, decreased body fat, and reduced likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes,” said lead author Dr Dipender Gill. study at Imperial College London. “It can improve people’s metabolism, although that doesn’t mean people should go out and drink lots of high-calorie caffeinated drinks like chai lattes.”

An average cup of coffee contains around 70 to 150 milligrams of caffeine, and evidence shows that 100 milligrams per day can increase energy expenditure by around 100 calories per day. But coffee also contains other chemicals such as diterpenes that could harm metabolism.

Research also found that people with high levels of caffeine in their blood were no less likely to develop cardiovascular diseases such as stroke, heart failure, coronary artery disease, and irregular heartbeat (fibrillation auricular).

“If there is more evidence from larger trials in the future, this could suggest that people should consider drinking espresso or black coffee to reduce their risk of type 2 diabetes,” Gill said. .