As we approach Year Four of the coronavirus pandemic, the United States is close to clearing an astounding 100 million cases. Even more confounding? There are people who haven’t gotten it. People with petri dishes for children, folks going about their merry way seemingly unscathed. So what gives? What’s their secret? Well, it may be coffee. New research finds that drinking coffee be acting as a deterrent for the coronavirus.
We’ve reported previously on a study linking coffee consumption and decreased instances of COVID-19, with the researchers suggesting perhaps that it was the antioxidant properties of coffee leading to the lowered case count (because that’s often the answer in these coffee and healthfulness studies). For this new study, published recently in the journal Food & Function, researchers from Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany were able to show, in a lab setting at least, exactly how coffee could inhibit coronavirus infection.
As reported by Phys.org, for the study, researchers examined one particular chemical compound found in coffee, 5-caffeoylquinic acid, known more colloquially as chlorogenic acid. In experiments, they found that chlorogenic acid worked to prevent the spike protein of SARS CoV-2 from binding to the ACE-2 receptor, “the docking site of the virus on the human cell.” And in fact, chlorogenic acid preventing the binding of the spike protein by a factor of 50. Unable to attach to the human cell, the virus is infect and spread.
Yet there is still more work to be done before any conclusive statements can be made. Researchers don’t know, for instance, how long coffee may act as an inhibitor. And while more research on the subject needs to be done, the authors of this study state the drinking coffee deterring COVID infection is plausible.
Plausible is good enough to keep me drinking coffee every morning… and afternoon.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
