Coffee reduces risk of death from liver disease
- 24/07/2003 - Drinking three cups
of coffee daily may reduce the risk of mortality from liver
cirrhosis, suggest researchers in Norway.
The team from the Norwegian Institute of Public
Health in Oslo followed up 51,306 adults who underwent screening
for cardiovascular disease from 1977 to 1983. During this time,
53 deaths were cirrhosis-related, and 36 of these deaths were attributed
to alcoholic cirrhosis.
The relative risk of liver cirrhosis, adjusted
for sex, age, alcohol use and other major cardiovascular risk factors,
seemed to be reduced by 40 per cent for those drinking three daily
cups of coffee. For alcoholic cirrhosis the results were identical,
reported the researchers in this month's Annals of Epidemiology.
"The present study confirms the existence of an
inverse association between coffee consumption and liver cirrhosis," concluded
the researchers, although they could not explain which component
of coffee was producing the protective effect. The beneficial ingredient
is unlikely to be caffeine however.
Coffee has previously been related to a reduced
risk for onset of diabetes, although some studies suggest that
heavy coffee-drinkers can increase their chances of developing
heart disease.
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