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June 13 (foodconsumer.org) - Drinking coffee may help protect the liver against alcoholic cirrhosis, a new study suggests. But researchers quickly warn drinking coffee is not the way to prevent liver cirrhosis and other diseases.

Those who drank as little as one cup of coffee daily were 20 percent less likely to have alcoholic cirrhosis compared to those who did not drink coffee, better yet, the risk of the liver disease decreased as coffee drinking increased, according to the study funded by a grant from the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute.

The study, led by researchers at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California followed more than 125,000 people between 1978 and 1985. Participants, free of diagnosed liver disease including alcoholic cirrhosis when enrolled in the study, were surveyed for their daily consumption of alcohol, coffee and tea. Data collection was supported by a grant from the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation, Baltimore.

In the study, published in the June 12 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, most participants reported drinking light or moderate amounts of alcohol (less than two drinks a day). Only 8 percent said they drank three or more alcoholic drinks daily. Coffee consumption was limited up to three cups a day for 42 percent of people in the group while four or more cups of coffee were consumed daily by 16 percent of people.

By the end of 2001, 330 cases of liver disease including 199 cases of alcoholic cirrhosis had been recorded. Alcoholic cirrhosis is the cirrhosis of the liver induced by alcohol in which scar tissue replaces normal, healthy tissue, blocking the flow of blood through the liver and preventing it from working as it should.

"Consuming coffee seems to have some protective benefits against alcoholic cirrhosis,” said Arthur Klatsky, MD, co-author from Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research. "The more coffee a person consumes the less risk they seem to have of being hospitalized or dying of alcoholic cirrhosis," he said.

The researchers found that people drinking one cup of coffee a day were, on average, 20 percent less likely to have alcoholic cirrhosis. For people drinking two or three cups the reduction was 40 percent, and for those drinking four or more cups of coffee a day the reduction in risk was 80 percent.

"Even allowing for statistical variation, this shows there is a clear association between coffee consumption, and protection against alcoholic cirrhosis," said Klatsky.

However, coffee drinking was not associated with reduced risk of non-alcoholic cirrhosis. "We did not see a similar protective association between coffee and non-alcoholic cirrhosis," Dr. Klatsky added.

The inverse relationship between coffee and alcoholic cirrhosis was first reported by researchers at Kaiser Permanente in 1993. Studies in other countries have resulted in similar association between coffee drinking and liver cirrhosis and many other types of liver conditions.

One early study published by Klatsy and colleagues in a 1992 issue of American Journal of Epidemiology , which involved 59 cases of liver cirrhosis, showed extract results reported in the current study that people who drank four or more cups of coffee per day were 80% less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis than non-coffee drinkers.

An Italian study conducted by Corrao, G. and coworkers and published in a 2001 issue of Annals of Epidemiology also found the association between drinking four or more cups of coffee a day and a 84 percent reduced risk of liver cirrhosis. The same authors also reported in European Journal of Epidemiology early in 1994 that pointed coffee drinking to reduced risk of alcoholic cirrhosis.

Another smaller study by Gallus, S. and his team and published in a 2002 issue of Annals of Epidemiology showed a 71% lower risk of developing liver cirrhosis in people drinking three or more cups of coffee.

Coffee drinking seems also to reduce the mortality from alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. Klatsky reported in a 1993 issue of Annals of Epidemiology a study showing coffee drinkers had 23% less chance of dying from liver cirrhosis than non-coffee drinkers.

A similar inverse association between total and alcoholic liver cirrhosis mortality and coffee consumption was also reported in a Norwegian cohort study of 51,306 people with 53 case of liver cirrhosis. The study was by Tverdal, A. and Skurtveit, S. and appears in a 2003 issue of Annals of Epidemiology.

The researchers of the current study do not known what in coffee is linked with the apparently protective effect, but since the link was not found in tea drinkers, researchers believe that something in coffee other than just caffeine that is correlated with the reduced risk of alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver.

Although at least most of the studies per se could not definitely say that drinking coffee prevents alcoholic cirrhosis, there is some biochemical evidence supporting the theory. Some studies have showed coffee drinkers are less likely to have high levels of enzymes in the liver, which indicate inflammation or other diseases including liver problems induced by alcohol.

The authors warned, however, "Even if coffee is protective, the primary approach to reduction of alcoholic cirrhosis is avoidance or cessation of heavy alcohol drinking."

"This is not a recommendation to drink coffee," said Klatsky. "Nor is it a recommendation that the way to deal with heavy alcohol consumption is to drink more coffee." The purpose of the study is to find "some clues as to the biochemical processes taking place inside liver cells that could help in finding new ways to protect the liver against injury."

More than 5 million people suffer from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis in the United States, and nearly 28,000 people die of liver disease every year, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

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