Coffee And Its Ability to Help Type 2 Diabetics

As a coffee drinker, you may reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Coffee drinkers also may also improve their overall health if they already have the condition.

Go ahead, enjoy that cup of freshly brewed gourmet coffee and know that you are doing something good for your body today.

Type 2 diabetes is a serious health risk but often is preventable.Current research indicates that coffee may help prevent diabetes or improve the overall health of a diabetic. While caffeine may not be for everyone, coffee seems to have health benefits when it comes to diabetes.

Why Does Coffee Matter For Diabetic Care?

For a diabetic, the foods you eat and drink matter. What you consume impacts whether you get diabetes, and if affects the disease if you already have it. Coffee has surfaced as one of the best ways to keep blood sugars in check. The exact reasons are not yet clear and further research is being done in this area to understand the role coffee plays in the body.

Studies Showing Benefits of Coffee on Diabetes

A recent study followed men who drank six or more cups of coffee per day, with no preexisting health conditions. They showed a 50% decrease in the onset of diabetes compared with men men who did not consume coffee. The same study also looked at the effects on women and found a drop of 30 percent in the risk of developing diabetes.

What does this mean to the average person who is worred about developing diabetes? You should know that cutting coffee drinking will not help in preventing diabetes. In fact, you may want to increase your consumption somewhat. Of course, you should monitor your health in other ways such as dieting and exercise. But, drinking coffee, at least two to three cups per day, should help ward off diabetes according to research.

Coffee And Caffeine

The caffeine in coffee is always a health concern. Caffeine has been blamed for various health problems including stress and anxiety. It can lead to sleep disorders as well.

However, the caffeine in coffee appears to also provide much of the benefit in warding off diabetes. In studies analyzing the benefits of coffee on Type 2 diabetes, decaf coffee appears to have less of an effect on preventing the condition than full strength coffee. In other words, the studies showed some improvement by drinkining just decaf but the larger benefit was from drinking regular coffee.

Coffee and Diabetes Studies

One contrary study about diabetes and coffee was released in 2008 by researchers from Duke. The studied a small group study of people with established type 2 diabetes who drank at least two cups of coffee everyday. They sought to manage their diabetes through diet, exercise and oral medications, but no insulin. Scientists continuously monitored sugar levels over a 72-hour period.

To test the results of coffee, the study participants took capsules containing caffeine equal to about four cups of coffee on one day. On another day they took identical capsules that contained a placebo.

According to the study, when participants consumed caffeine, their average daily sugar levels increased eight percent. Caffeine also caused their glucose to rise after meals: increasing by nine percent after breakfast; 15 percent after lunch; and 26 per cent after dinner. More about this study is in the February 2008 issue of Diabetes Care.

More beneficial results from drinking coffee were indicated by the findings of another study released in 2005, which suggested that drinking coffee and tea may reduce the chances of a person getting type 2 diabetes. The study included 7,006 people, 32 to 88 years of age, who participated in a follow-up study of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study (NHANES). Researchers found that the more coffee and caffeine a person consumed, the lower the chances that they were to get type 2 diabetes. However, the reduction in the likelihood of diabetes was only seen in those who lost weight during the study, and only among people age 60 or younger. No benefits were seen in participants who drank instant coffee or herbal tea.

 

Another study published in November 2006 issue of the journal Diabetes Care, showed strong findings that coffee helps protect against diabetes. After adjusting for other known diabetes risk factors, the researchers concluded that both past and current drinkers of caffeinated coffee had about a 60 percent reduction in diabetes risk, compared with study participants who never drank coffee. The reason, however, was not clear.

This followed a Finnish study, reported in 2004, that suggested a 30 percent reduction in type 2 diabetes risk among people who drank three or four cups of coffee a day. Women studied who drank 10 or more cups a day showed a 79 percent risk reduction.

The combined results from 15 studies involving more than 200,000 participants have suggested similar protective effects. According to a review by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, people who drank the most coffee had the lowest diabetes risk .

As American Diabetes Association spokesman Larry Deeb, MD, told WebMD, "People with diabetes and those at risk for developing diabetes have enough to worry about.  It is nice to know that coffee isn't one of them, and it may actually help lower risk."

Coffee and Your Health

The bottom line about coffee and your health is that coffee seems to have some beneficial effects on diabetes. Further study is needed to understand this link between diabetic care and coffee and there are some conflicting studies. The role of caffeine in helping to prevent diabetes is not yet understood.

With a healthy diet, exercise, and good lifestyle choices, coffee may be just what you need to avoid the onset of diabetes and live a fuller life.

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