Coffee Linked to Reduced Risk of Developing Liver Cancer in New Study

Coffee may reduce a person’s risk of an autoimmune liver disease, according to a study presented at the Digestive Disease Week 2013 conference in Orlando, Fla., and, ultimately, liver cancer.

In all, researchers from the Mayo Clinic examined coffee consumption among a “large” group of patients living with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) in comparison to a healthy group of individuals, according to a press release.

Ultimately, the research showed that PSC patients were much more likely not to drink coffee than the healthy participants, reporting an average of 20 percent less time spent consuming the beverage.

Furthermore, the study suggests that PSC and PBC differ more than originally thought. Knowing this, says Dr. Konstantinos Lazaridis, scientists “can look at what this finding might tell us about the causes of these diseases and how to better treat them.”

PSC is an inflammatory disease of the bile ducts that results in inflammation and subsequent fibrosis that can, in turn, lead to cirrhosis of the liver, liver failure and billary cancer.

“We’re always looking for ways to mitigate risk, and our first-time finding points to a novel environmental factor that also might help us to determine the cause of this and other devastating autoimmune diseases,” Dr. Craig Lammert,a Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist, said.

Previously, coffee has been linked to a decrease in the risk of breast cancer returning among women taking Tamoxifen, as well as diabetes.

Furthermore, a study of the people living on the Greek island Ikaria, a group that lives longer than any other in the rest of the world, traced the longevity of 142 men and women back to their consumption of boiled, Greek coffee, which may stave off heart disease.

“Coffee has been identified as a major source of antioxidants,” Gerasimos Siasos, the lead author of the latter stated in the study, “but on the other hand it is supposed to have adverse effects on blood cholesterol and homocysteine levels and hypertension.”

The study led by Lazaridis was funded in part with a grant to the doctor by the National Institute of Health as well as a postdoctoral fellowship awarded Lammert by the American Liver Foundation.