A cup a day can keep the doctor away

COFFEE MAY counteract alcohol’s poisonous effects on the liver and help to prevent cirrhosis, researchers say.

In a study of more that 125,000 people, one cup of coffee per day cut the risk of alcoholic cirrhosis by 20 per cent. Four cups per day reduced the risk by 80 per cent. The coffee effect held true for women and men of various ethnic backgrounds.

It is unclear whether it is the caffeine or some other ingredient i n coffee that provides the protection, said co-author Dr Arthur Klatsy of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research i n Oakland, California.

Of course, there is a better way of avoiding alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver, Klatsky said.

“The way to avoid getting ill is not to drink a lot of coffee, but to cut down on the drinking of alcohol,” he said.

The participants ranged from teetotallers, who made up 12 per cent of the total, to heavy drinkers, who made up eight per cent. The researchers calculated the risk reduction rate for the whole group, not just the drinkers.

Not all heavy drinkers develop cirrhosis, an irreversible scarring of the liver that hurts the organ’s ability to filter toxins from the blood. Klatsky said the new findings may help explain why some people’s liver survives heavy alcohol use.

Hepatitis and some inherited disease can also cause cirrhosis. But the study found coffee drinkers has had healthier results on the blood tests use to measure liver function, whether or not they were heavy alcohol users.

Coffee’s effect on reducing liver enzymes in the blood was more apparent among the heavy drinkers in the study.

The findings, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, build on reports that coffee also may reduce the risk of liver cancer.

The data came from members of the Northern California health plan. Their coffee consumption was noted only at the beginning of the study, which the researchers admitted was a limitation. They were followed for an average of 14 years.

The researchers found no reduced risk of cirrhosis for tea drinkers. Tea has less caffeine than coffee and there were fewer heavy drinkers in the study, so if caffeine is the protective ingredient, an effect may not have shown up for tea in the study.