Coffee consumption reduces Type-2 Diabetes risk
Coffee consumption has been shown to reduce type-2 diabetes risk. However, if you already have diabetes, coffee consumption can make matters worse.
Harvard researchers followed 48,464 women in the Nurses’ Health Study, 47,510 women in NHS II and 27,759 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, and looked at changing coffee and tea consumption (1).
Where there was an increase in coffee consumption the risk of Type 2 diabetes fell; Where there was a decline in coffee consumption, it increased. Tea had no such effects.
Where people reduced consumption by just one coffee per day, type-2 diabetes risk increased by 17 per cent.
The authors noted no difference between caffeinated coffee and decaffeinated coffee. It is thus highly unlikely that these anti-diabetes effects have anything to do with caffeine but more to do with the polyphenols in coffee.
But – Type-2 diabetes patients need to beware of caffeine plus carbs
A previous study (2) showed that caffeine could acutely decrease insulin sensitivity aggravating hyperglycaemia, where the person already had diabetes. Researchers concluded that caffeine produces increases in glucose and insulin. The problems became worse when caffeine was consumed with carbohydrate.
Ref
1. April 2014: Diabetologia: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00125-014-3235-7
2. http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/27/8/2047.full
