Coffee and Tea May Promote Liver Health, New Study Reveals

Sharon Moore August 21, 2013

Drinking coffee or tea in moderation, or up to four cups a day, don’t just help energise the body. It can also contribute to a healthier liver. That’s the conclusion of a study published recently in the journal Hepatology.

The liver is among the major organs that perform hundreds of vital functions, including the removal of toxic compounds from the body. Whilst the liver is able to repair itself, its ability to self-repair is limited and continuous injury can lead to scarring.

Using cell culture and mouse models, researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School (Duke-NUS) and the Duke University School of Medicine found that increased caffeine intake may reduce fat deposits in people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Worldwide, 70 percent of people diagnosed with diabetes and obesity have this condition. Unfortunately, there are no effective medical treatments for NAFLD. Patients are only advised to do regular exercise and observe proper diet. It is estimated that one in five people (20%) in the UK are in the early stages of the condition, according to the charity British Liver Trust.

Caffeine boosts metabolism of fats

In the current study, the researchers observed that increased doses of caffeine equivalent to four cups of coffee or tea a day, stimulated the metabolism of lipids stored in liver cells and reduced the fatty deposits in mice fed with a high-fat diet.

According to Paul Yen, M.D., associate professor and research fellow at Duke-NUS, this is the first detailed study of the mechanism for caffeine action on lipids in liver. "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." he said.

The researchers suggest that their findings can lead to the development of caffeine-like drugs that have the same positive effects on the liver but don’t have the side effects of coffee.

Source of this article:

Caffeine stimulates hepatic lipid metabolism via autophagy-lysosomal pathway