Research shows your morning coffee habit may also be good for your liver

Fact checked by Nick Blackmer

• A new study suggests that drinking coffee may lower the risk of liver disease and liver cancer.
• People who drank five or more cups a day saw the greatest reduction in risk.
• However, experts don’t recommend starting to drink coffee based on these findings alone.

From the growing popularity of liver supplements to viral liver cleanses, caring for the body’s largest internal organ has suddenly become trendy. But there’s something many of us are already doing to support the liver: drinking coffee. 

According to a recent study, this common morning habit is associated with a lower risk of liver disease, liver cancer, and liver-related death. The research also suggests that coffee itself—rather than just the caffeine is contains—is likely responsible for those benefits, said Hyunseok Kim, MD, MPH, PhD, a study author and transplant hematologist and assistant professor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

A Deep Dive Into Coffee Consumption and Liver Health

Research has long shown that coffee may benefit the liver, which is responsible for filtering waste and carrying out hundreds of other vital functions. But the researchers behind the new study wanted to take a more comprehensive look and “better understand the biology” behind the connection, Kim told Health.

To do so, they analyzed data from nearly 355,000 adults in the UK Biobank, a large biomedical dataset, who didn’t have cirrhosis or liver cancer when they enrolled. Participants reported their coffee consumption, including whether they drank caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee and whether they added sugar or artificial sweeteners.

Over a median follow-up of 13 years, the researchers tracked how many participants were diagnosed with cirrhosis or liver cancer or died from a liver-related condition. In subsets of participants, they also evaluated MRI measures of liver fat and inflammation and analyzed nearly 3,000 circulating proteins, Kim said.

The More Cups You Drink, the More You May Benefit

Compared to people who didn’t drink coffee, those who drank five or more cups a day had a 32% lower risk of cirrhosis, a 47% lower risk of liver cancer, and a 42% lower risk of dying from liver disease, the researchers reported in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. People who drank three to four cups of coffee a day saw the next greatest reduction in risk, followed by those who stuck to one to two cups a day.

The same associations were seen with both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, suggesting that “compounds other than caffeine likely contribute to the liver benefits,” Kim said.

But “what makes [the study] stand out is [the researchers] didn’t stop at diagnoses,” said Jay Luthar, MD, DipABLM, an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who was not involved with the research. “They looked at actual liver MRIs and blood proteins, all correlating with more coffee equaling less fat, less iron, less scarring, and less inflammation.”

According to Luthar, “this is one of the biggest, well-designed looks at coffee and the liver we’ve had.”

Still, the research has some limitations. As an observational study, it can’t prove that coffee directly prevents liver disease. “We adjusted for many lifestyle and metabolic factors, [but] residual confounding is always possible,” Kim explained.

Additionally, coffee intake was self-reported, meaning that inaccuracies could have crept in. And because the UK Biobank mostly includes people of European ancestry, “additional studies are needed in more diverse populations,” Kim said.

What’s In Coffee?

Because even decaffeinated coffee was associated with liver benefits, the study points to other compounds in coffee that may be responsible—most likely chlorogenic acids, a type of polyphenol found in many plant foods, and compounds called diterpenes, Luthar said.

These compounds “act as antioxidants, calm inflammation, and quiet the cells that lay down liver scar tissue,” he continued, noting that coffee also seems to trigger a positive shift in the gut microbiome, lowering the “toxin load hitting the liver.”

“So,” Luthar added, “it’s several small pushes in the same direction.”

What Experts Recommend

If coffee is already part of your daily routine, the findings suggest that you may be doing your liver a favor. “These results add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that coffee may be one component of an overall healthy lifestyle,” Kim said.

But experts still recommend paying attention to how much you drink and how you drink it.

Too much caffeine and too much cream, sugar, or artificial sweetener can cause issues such as disrupted sleep and weight gain, and the American Heart Association suggests that drinking more than five cups of coffee a day may lead to heart problems.

“If coffee gives you palpitations, jitters, or wrecks your sleep, that’s your body telling you something,” Luthar said.

For people who don’t currently drink coffee, experts don’t suggest starting based on these findings alone. “I would not recommend that someone start drinking coffee solely to prevent liver disease,” Kim said. “Rather, these results add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that coffee may be one component of an overall healthy lifestyle.”

Even if you do drink coffee, it’s not a substitute for other proven ways to protect the liver, Kim added. Those include maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly, limiting excessive alcohol intake, and controlling conditions such as diabetes and high cholesterol.

Read the original article on Health