Coffee Reduces Liver Cancer Risk

We have written time and again about the health benefits of coffee and especially about how coffee consumption reduces cancer risk. Now there is new information about how coffee reduces liver cancer risk. Newsweek reports the story.

Scientists have discovered a link between drinking coffee regularly and a reduced risk of developing one of the most common types of liver cancer. Scientists found people who drink five cups per day were 50 percent less likely to develop hepatocellular carcinoma, with the researchers saying their findings add to evidence showing coffee can be “a wonderful natural medicine.”

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Southampton, U.K., analyzed data from 26 studies-amounting to over 2 million participants. They looked at the risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma, which is the second leading causes of cancer mortality worldwide, and the incidence rates based on how much coffee people drank.

The researchers report that drinking a cup of coffee a day was associated with a twenty percent reduction in hepatocellular carcinoma, two cups a day with a 35 percent reduction and five cups a day with a reduction of 50 percent. Even decaf drinkers had a fourteen percent risk reduction.

The study about the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma was a review of other research and was published in the British Medical Journal.

We found 18 cohorts, involving 2 272 642 participants and 2905 cases, and 8 case-control studies, involving 1825 cases and 4652 controls. An extra two cups per day of coffee was associated with a 35% reduction in the risk of HCC (RR 0.65, 95% CI 0.59 to 0.72).

In other words this study included more than two million people and showed a statistical relationship between how much coffee these people drank and the reduction in liver cancer risk that they experienced.

The researchers note that this effect carries through even with people who had pre-existing liver disease that would tend to predispose to the development of liver cancer. That is to say, that coffee has a cancer preventative effect even in people who were more likely than average to get liver cancer.

Organic Coffee

This study in question did not specify if people drink organic or regular coffee. However, there are extra health benefits to drinking organic coffee. Primarily they have to do with reducing impurities that you otherwise would consume. Organic coffee certification guarantees that a lot of bad things are not in the coffee you drink.

The soil in which organic coffee is grown must have been verified as free from prohibited substances for at least three years. In addition there must be distinct boundaries between land on which organic coffee is grown and land where pesticides, herbicides, and prohibited chemical fertilizers are used. This guarantees that drift of substances sprayed or otherwise applied on adjacent land will not contaminate the organic plot of land. Organic coffee certification includes the adherence to a specific and verifiable plan for all practices and procedures from planting to crop maintenance, to harvest, de-husking, bagging, transport, roasting, packaging, and final transport. Along the way procedures must be in place at every step to insure that there is no contamination of the healthy organic coffee produced in pristine soil with regular coffee produced on soil exposed to herbicides, pesticides, and organic fertilizers.

Coffee is not only morning wakeup drink but also beneficial to our health. Go the extra step and drink only organic coffee to move other risks from the impurities in regular coffee.




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