foodconsumer.org: Coffee, tea may help prevent diabetes

Coffee, tea may help prevent diabetes
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admin on 12/15/2009 01:45:00
 
By Jimmy downs
Drinking coffee or tea may help reduce risk of diabetes, according to a review
study published in the Dec 14-28, 2009 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
Rachel Huxley D Phil of the George Institute for International Health University
of Sydney in Australia and colleagues meta-analyzed data from previous studies
and found drinking coffee and tea was associated with reduced risk of diabetes
mellitus.
Huxley et al. identified 18 studies of 458,000 men and women published between
1966 and 2009. Data on decaffeinated coffee came from six studies of 225,000
individuals and data on tea consumption came from seven studies of 287,000
participants.
The researchers found each additional cup of coffee consumed per day was
associated with a 7 percent reduction in the risk of diabetes.
Those who drank three to four cups of coffee per day were at about 25 percent
lower risk than those who drank none or less than two cups a day.
Huxley also found that those who drank more than three to four cups of
decaffeinated coffee had about a one-third lower risk of diabetes mellitus than
those who did not drink any.
With regard to tea consumption, those drank more than three to four cups had a
one-fifth flower risk of diabetes than those drank no tea.
Because of the association between decaffeinated coffee and reduced risk of
diabetes, if the link is indeed a causal relationship, then caffeine may not be
the only factor that affects the risk.
The researchers suspect that other compounds in coffee and tea like magnesium,
antioxidants such as lignans or chlorogenic acids may be the compounds that
protect against diabetes.
These studies are not trials and merely revealed some correlation between
coffee, tea and reduced risk of diabetes, meaning drinking coffee and tea does
not necessarily cut diabetes risk necessarily.
An estimated more than 20 million Americans live with diabetes.