Have a cuppa for the liver
That cup of coffee to perk up your day may be helping your body in another way.
A team of researchers led by Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School (Duke-NUS) and the Duke University School of Medicine suggest that increased caffeine intake may reduce fatty liver in people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease that is found in 70 per cent of people with diabetes and obesity worldwide.
The study authors – led by Dr Paul Yen and Dr Rohit Sinha of the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School’s Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders Programme in Singapore – observed that caffeine stimulates the metabolisation of lipids stored in liver cells, and decreases the fatty liver of mice fed a high-fat diet.
“Coffee and tea are so commonly consumed and the notion that they may be therapeutic, especially since they have a reputation for being ‘bad’ for health, is especially enlightening,” Dr Yen said.
The team said their research could lead to development of caffeine-like drugs that do not have caffeine’s usual side effects. Their findings will be published in next month’s issue of the journal Hepatology.
Source: The Sunday Times
