Want to reduce your risk of liver cirrhosis? Then you may want to keep drinking your daily cup of coffee. Researchers have found that people who consume two or more cups of coffee each day reduce their risk of death from liver cirrhosis by 66 percent.
"Prior evidence suggests that coffee may reduce liver damage in patients with chronic liver disease," said Woon-Puay Koh, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Our study examined the effects of consuming coffee, alcohol, black tea, green tea and soft drinks on risk of mortality from cirrhosis."
The researchers examined 63,275 volunteers between the ages of 45 and 74 living in Singapore. These participants provided information on diet, lifestyle choices and their medical history. They were then followed for an average of 15 years.
So what did they find? The scientists discovered that coffee intake was associated with a lower risk of death from cirrhosis, specifically for non-viral hepatitis related cirrhosis. In fact, those who drank two or more cups of coffee per day had a 66 percent reduction in mortality risk compared to non-daily coffee drinkers.
"Our study is the first to demonstrate a difference between the effects of coffee on non-viral and viral hepatitis related cirrhosis mortality," said Koh in a news release. "This finding resolves the seemingly conflicting results on the effect of coffee in Western and Asian-based studies of death from liver cirrhosis. Our finding suggests that while the benefit of coffee may be less apparent in the Asian population where chronic viral hepatitis B predominates currently, this is expected to change as the incidence of non-viral hepatitis related cirrhosis is expected to increase in these regions, accompanying the increasing affluence of westernizing lifestyles amongst their younger populations."
So do you want to be healthier? Then drinking some coffee might help. It turns out that the beverage actually can be good for you.
The findings were published in the journal Hepatology.
