Coffee May Protect Liver from cancer

[stephenjones]

Java jolt could be fighting more than the daily blahs

Coffee drinkers had less liver cancer than others, a study in Japan found. The reason is unclear.

By Randolph E. Schmid - Associated Press


WASHINGTON - That cup of coffee may do more than provide a tasty energy boost. It also may help prevent the most common type of liver cancer.

A study of more than 90,000 Japanese found that people who drank coffee daily or nearly every day had half the risk of liver cancer as those who never drank coffee.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 18,920 cases of liver cancer were diagnosed in the United States last year and that 14,270 people died of the illness. Causes include hepatitis, cirrhosis, excess alcohol consumption, and diseases causing chronic inflammation of the liver.

Animal studies have suggested a protective association of coffee with liver cancer, so the research team led by Monami Inoue of the National Cancer Center in Tokyo analyzed a 10-year public-health study to determine coffee use by people diagnosed with liver cancer and people who did not have cancer.

They found the likely occurrence of liver cancer in people who never or almost never drank coffee was 547.2 cases per 100,000 people over 10 years.

But for people who drank coffee daily the risk was 214.6 cases per 100,000, the researchers report in this week's issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

They found that the protective effect occurred in people who drank one to two cups of coffee a day and increased at three to four cups. They were unable to compare the effect of regular and decaffeinated coffee, however, because decaf is rarely consumed in Japan.

It is the caffeine in coffee that makes some people nervous and it has been shown in other studies to prompt mental alertness in many people.

Some studies have suggested caffeine aggravates symptoms of menopause or intensifies the side effects of some antibiotics. Heavy caffeine use has been linked to miscarriage. But studies have also shown that a skin cream spiked with caffeine lowers the risk of skin cancer in mice.

"It's an excellent, interesting and provocative study and their conclusions seem justified," said Dr. R. Palmer Beasley of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who was not part of the research group.

While the study found a statistically significant relationship between drinking coffee and having less liver cancer, the authors note that it needs to be repeated in other groups.

And the reason for the reduction remains unclear.

However, Inoue's team noted that coffee contained large amounts of antioxidants, and several animal studies have indicated those compounds have the potential to inhibit cancer in the liver.