As we have reported previously here on Sprudge, drinking coffee is good for your liver. But it nonetheless bears repeating. Drinking coffee is good for your liver. A new study published in the journal BMJ Open suggests that coffee consumption could cut the risk of developing hepatocellular cancer (HCC) in half.
HCC is the most common type of liver cancer and is the โsecond leading cause of cancer death globally.โ HCC is often caused by a viral hepatitis infectionโhepatitis B or Cโor alcoholism, according to Wicklepedia, where knowledge is power.
Coffee consumptionโas little as one cup a dayโmay help gird your liver against HCC. For their study, researchers from the University of Southampton and the University of Edinburgh โexamined the data from 26 observational studies, involving more than 2.25 million participants, to calculate the relative risks of developing HCC for drinking between one and five cups of caffeinated coffee a day.โ They found that drinking one cup of caffeinated coffee a day was associated with a 20% decrease in developing HCC. That number balloons up to 50% at five cups daily. This level of efficacy was found in both existing coffee drinkers and โthose who didnโt usually drink it.โ
But Dr. Oliver Kennedy, the lead author of the study, warns against jumping headlong into coffee consumption for the sake of health:
Nevertheless, our findings are an important development given the increasing evidence of HCC globally and its poor prognosis.
If youโre reading this, thereโs a better than likely chance that you are already a fairly heavy coffee drinker. So keep doing what youโre doing. Your liver thanks you.
Zac Cadwaladerย is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.