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New research suggests that coffee lowers the risk of multiple liver health issues.This isn\u2019t the first study to find that coffee is good for the liver.Both regular and decaf coffee seem to have liver health perks.<\/p>\n
Any day that science confirms that coffee is good for you is a great day. And now, new research has found that coffee may be especially beneficial for one particular organ.<\/p>\n
Your liver acts as a filter for your body and performs more than 500<\/a> vital functions, making this an organ you want to support. The coffee-liver health connection seems a little random, but hepatologists (aka liver doctors) have been talking up the perks of coffee for years.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what the latest study found, plus why drinking coffee is such a boost for your liver health.<\/p>\n Meet the experts: Hyunseok Kim, MD, PhD<\/a>, lead study author and transplant hepatologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; Raffi Karagozian, MD<\/a>, transplant hepatologist at Tufts Medical Center; and Marie L. Borum, MD<\/a>, director of the Division of Gastroenterology and Liver Disease at George Washington University<\/p>\n What did the study find?<\/p>\n The study was published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology<\/a> and analyzed data on the diets and overall health of nearly 355,000 adults who participated in the UK Biobank, a long-running biomedical database.<\/p>\n Researchers tracked participants for about 13 years, specifically looking for liver health complications like cirrhosis (scarring of the liver) or liver cancer, along with dying from liver-related causes.<\/p>\n They discovered that coffee-drinkers as a whole were less likely to develop liver complications over time. Specifically, people who had five or more cups of coffee daily had a 32 percent lower risk of cirrhosis, a 47 percent lower risk of developing liver cancer, and a 42 percent lower risk of dying from a liver-related cause compared to people who didn\u2019t drink coffee. The perks held up whether people had regular or decaf coffee, and the researchers also found benefits when people drank smaller amounts of coffee each day.<\/p>\n The team also found that people who drank coffee had lower levels of liver inflammation and higher levels of certain proteins that suggested they had healthier liver function compared to non-coffee drinkers.<\/p>\n These findings \u201csupport moderate unsweetened coffee as a simple strategy for liver disease prevention,\u201d the researchers wrote in the study\u2019s conclusion.<\/p>\n How does coffee support liver health?<\/p>\n There are likely a few things going on here. While you may associate coffee with caffeine, it\u2019s actually so much more. \u201cCoffee is a complex mixture containing hundreds of biologically active compounds\u2014not only caffeine,\u201d says Hyunseok Kim, MD, PhD<\/a>, lead study author and transplant hepatologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Some of these biologically active compounds include chlorogenic acids, polyphenols, and diterpenes, which may collectively have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-scarring effects. \u201cThey may also improve metabolic health and reduce pathways involved in liver-cell injury and scar formation,\u201d Dr. Kim adds.<\/p>\n Those antioxidant compounds in coffee can help to decrease oxidative stress, which can lead to chronic inflammation if it goes unchecked, says Raffi Karagozian, MD<\/a>, transplant hepatologist at Tufts Medical Center. \u201cIn addition, coffee slows down the activity of cells that are responsible for fibrosis or scarring of the liver,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n But Dr. Karagozian points out that this isn\u2019t the first study to suggest that coffee can support liver health. A BMC Public Health<\/a> study published in 2021 analyzed data from nearly 500,000 people and found that coffee drinkers had a 21 percent lower risk of developing chronic liver disease compared to those who didn\u2019t drink coffee.<\/p>\n
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