Caffeine as Liver Damage Preventative: Evidence Looks Good

(HealthDay News) – Can drinking coffee or caffeine-laced sodas help your liver?

Research is mounting that caffeine helps people who are at risk for liver disease, and in fact, may be able to keep a liver healthy.

The study, conducted by scientists from the U.S. government's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDKD), was first presented at a 2004 medical conference. Lead researcher Dr. James E. Everhart, who heads the NIDDKD's epidemiology and clinical trials branch, said there have been other studies that have shown this effect from caffeine, but why caffeine protects against liver disease is not known.

"Caffeine blocks one receptor found in the brain and liver. This may have immunological effects, but this is really speculative," he added.

In their study, Everhart and Dr. Constance E. Ruhl from Social and Scientific Systems in Silver Spring , Md. , collected data on 5,944 men and women who were at high risk for liver injury.

Subjects' risks came from excessive drinking, hepatitis B or C, iron overload, obesity or impaired sugar metabolism.

All the subjects participated in the third U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

As part of the study, the subjects were asked to report how much coffee, tea and soft drinks they consumed.

Everhart and Ruhl found the more coffee and caffeine these people drank, the less likely they were to develop liver injury. This finding was the same for all age, gender and ethnic groups.

In addition, the protective effect was stronger for caffeine than for coffee.

Laboratory work is needed to figure out why caffeine has this effect, Everhart said. "More importantly, this finding should stimulate more clinical research in people with liver disease to see whether either drinking coffee or consuming caffeine has an effect," he added.

Dr. Jonathan A. Dranoff, an associate professor of internal medicine at Yale University, said that while the finding is "provocative and worthy of further investigation," he noted that findings in population-based studies do not necessarily confirm that caffeine causes any change in liver health.

“It is impossible to say that increasing coffee consumption would cause one to have less advanced liver injury," he added.

The next step, Dranoff said, is to do a study of patients and randomize them into caffeine or no-caffeine groups. "This is the best way to test if this hypothesis is true," he added.

On the Web

The U.S. government’s Medline Plus medical library tells you more about caffeine and its benefits and drawbacks.

SOURCES: James E. Everhart, M.D., M.P.H., James Everhart, M.D., chief, epidemiology and clinical trials branch, U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Bethesda , Md. ; Jonathan A. Dranoff, M.D., a ssociate professor, s ection of digestive diseases, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.; May 18, 2004, presentation, Digestive Disease Week annual conference, New Orleans
Author: Steven Reinberg, HealthDay Reporter
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