Coffee Reduces the Risks of Developing Type 2 Diabetes

A meta-analysis report, published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, suggests that consuming coffee reduces the risk of developing type 2 Diabetes. The data is based on 18 studies between 1966 and July of this year.

The findings indicate that for every additional cup of coffee consumed daily, there was an associated 5% to 10% decrease in excess risk of developing diabetes. There was a 25 % reduction in risk when consuming three to four cups of coffee per day over drinking less than three. Similar results were also suggested based on 6 studies on the consumption of decaffeinated coffee and 7 studies on the consumption of tea.

According to researcher, Dr. Rachel Huxley of the George Institute for International Health in Sydney, Australia, and her colleagues - "If such beneficial effects were observed in interventional trials to be real, the implications for the millions of individuals who have diabetes, or who are at future risk of developing it, would be substantial,"

Dr Huxley went on to say - "For example, the identification of the active components of these beverages would open up new therapeutic pathways for the primary prevention of diabetes mellitus. It could also be envisaged that we will advise our patients most at risk for diabetes mellitus to increase their consumption of tea and coffee in addition to increasing their levels of physical activity and weight loss."

Conclusions of the report did however recognize that the individual studies researched were small, and as such, may contain "small study bias", which overestimate the “true magnitude of the association”.

SOURCE