A study done in Finland, the heaviest coffee drinking country, provides more evidence that the world’s most widely consumed beverage may ward off adult onset diabetes, researchers said on Tuesday.
Women there who drank three to four cups of coffee daily had a 29 percent reduced risk for the disease. Among men, the same amount lowered the risk by 27 percent.
The apparent protective effect, the mechanism of which remains a mystery, increased with consumption. Women who downed 10 or more cups a day had nearly an 80 percent lowered risk, while men who drank the same cut their risk by 55 percent.
More than 14,600 people participated in the study.
Finns average about nine cups of coffee daily and the country tops world per capita consumption at more than 24 pounds 10.8 kgs per person annually, the study said.
The findings from the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki are similar to results from other recent studies.
May regulate glucose levels
In January, Harvard researchers said a look at 125,000 people found men who drank six cups a day cut their diabetes risk by half over 12 to 18 years, while women who drank that amount had a 30 percent lowered risk. A recent Dutch study also found similar effects.
“This study revealed unequivocal evidence for an inverse and graded association between coffee consumption and type-II (diabetes) independent of other risk factors,” said the report published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
“Because the Finnish population drinks more coffee than other populations, we had power to determine the risk of (diabetes) at high levels of coffee consumption,” the authors added.
They said the reasons for the apparent beneficial effects remain unclear, though it was possible that chlorogenic acid in coffee may indirectly help regulate blood glucose levels. It is also well documented that caffeine stimulates insulin secretion by the pancreas, the report said.
Type-II diabetes, the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, is linked to obesity and lack of exercise. It causes the body to lose its ability to use insulin properly to metabolize food, especially sugar. Type-I or juvenile diabetes is a different disease caused by the destruction of key pancreatic cells.
Heavy coffee drinking has also been under scrutiny. The American Heart Association has said that studies looking at a direct link between caffeine, coffee drinking and heart disease have produced conflicting results but that moderate consumption, which it defines as one or two cups per day, does not seem harmful.
