Video: 75% of US coffee drinkers can’t go day without cup
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Roughly 33.3 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, according to estimates by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Roughly 10% of the United States has diabetes, generally for a total over 37 million.
While type 2 diabetes has a variety of causes and outcomes, a new study by researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden reported that a high amount of caffeine may help reduce risks of becoming a diabetic.
Published in BMJ Medicine, the research data suggests that having higher levels of caffeine in the blood can impact weight and long-term risks of type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease, strokes, heart failure, and other cardiovascular conditions.
In the study’s introductory text, researches noted that caffeine’s thermogenic effects have been previously studied for their effects on weight loss and fat mass. As a result, the study was conducted to check how high caffeine intake could lower risk of diseases related to what’s known as adiposity, or being overweight.
The research used coffee consumption as a baseline for caffeine dosage. It also compared caffeinated coffee to decaffeinated coffee.
“Evidence from observational studies supports an inverse association between coffee consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes, with all identified studies reporting a statistically significant or non-significant inverse association,” the study said. “In a dose-response meta-analysis, the risk of type 2 diabetes decreased by 7% for each cup per day increase of caffeinated coffee (an average cup contains around 70–150 mg caffeine) and by 6% for each cup per day increase of decaffeinated coffee.”
The team who conducted the study used Mendelian randomization, a statistics technique, to check genetic variants as a way of determining causal relationships between traits and results, or outcomes.
The analysis they conducted using this method showed that “higher genetically predicted plasma caffeine concentrations were associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes” in two groups of subjects.
When examining the genetic variants, the study said since variants in genetics are determined at conception, “individuals with genetic variants that are associated with higher plasma caffeine concentrations will, on average, be exposed to higher caffeine concentrations throughout their life compared with people with variants associated with lower plasma caffeine.”
Researchers conducting the check of caffeine versus heart disease and diabetes found that compared to not drinking coffee, having between three and five cups a day was “associated with lower risk of ischaemic heart disease and stroke.”
Adults with a lack of insulin sensitivity, meaning insulin does not work on them, were shown to to have no reaction from an average consumption of four cups of coffee per day. The cups of coffee drank, tested over a 24 week period, did not impact insulin sensitivity or resilience.
The study’s authors said that additional research would be needed to further understand the effects of caffeine on health outcomes, as related to weight-centered and cardiovascular conditions. The researchers wrote in their conclusion of the study that a set of randomized control trials may be needed to determine if non-caloric caffeinated drinks may help reduce risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
