Coffee Helps Prevent Type 2 Diabetes

[burtlancast]

Not sure if this ties with Ray's true causes of diabetes type 2 ( he doesn't see the pancreas as a culprit) but it does add to the already known qualities of coffee.

By Marni Jameson, Orlando Sentinel

January 16, 2012, 1:25 p.m.

Scientists have long known that coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but researchers out of China may have figured out why.

Researchers Ling Zheng, of Wuhan University, and Kun Huang, of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, have found that compounds in coffee inhibit hIAPP (human islet amyloid polypeptide), a substance linked to diabetes. Their study appeared in a recent issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Prior global epidemiological studies have shown that those who drink four or more cups of coffee a day have a 50 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, the most prevalent type of diabetes accounting for 95 percent of all cases. Every additional cup reduces the risk by an additional 7 percent.

Scientists looking for ways to prevent diabetes have been investigating ways to block hIAPP, which is present in high levels in the pancreases of those with the disease. Zheng and Huang decided to study whether coffee was doing that.

They analyzed the effects of the major active compounds in coffee, including caffeic acid and caffeine, on hIAPP, and found it inhibited hIAPP significantly. "These findings suggest that the beneficial effects of coffee consumption on type 2 diabetes may be partly due to the ability of major coffee components to inhibit the toxic aggression of hIAPP," the authors concluded.

"A beneficial effect may thus be expected in regular coffee drinkers," they said.

From Sepp Hasselberger's blog http://www.scoop.it/t/health-supreme?page=44

 

[Giraffe]

I stumbled upon another study on coffee's preventive effect.

Nutrition & Diabetes - Effect of chronic coffee consumption on weight gain and glycaemia in a mouse model of obesity and type 2 diabetes

The study was done in C57Bl/6 mice, which "when fed a high-fat diet (HFD) develop obesity, glucose intolerance, hyperinsulinaemia and later on a fasting hyperglycaemia."

"As the effect in humans is the result of a decade-long coffee consumption, it was decided to expose these mice to coffee for a proportionally similar length of time, that is, 35 weeks, which corresponds to about 30% of the mean lifespan of C57BL/6 mice.26 The present study shows that chronic consumption of regular coffee has significant diminishing effects on the body weight gain and on the blood glucose excursions during glucose tolerance tests."

The mice received either a high-fat diet or a normal diet, and there were three sub-groups (water, weak coffee, strong coffee). Food and fluid intake was ad libitum. It turned out that the fluid intake in the high-fat diet was lower, so coffee intake was lower, too.

In the normal diet a significant effect on weight was first seen after about 10 weeks. See picture: