Over the years, coffee has had to defend itself against a number of negative health reports. Now comes news that the beverage can help protect our livers.

For all you fanatic coffee drinkers who worry about whether or not your daily cuppa is doing you harm, there is something to celebrate. It seems that a regular daily intake of coffee can help to keep your liver working efficiently. And this news comes shortly after revelations of coffee's ability to improve your memory, help us pass exams, counter jet lag, and keep night shift workers safer by keeping them alert and wide awake.

A Clear head


Results released last year after research carried out by Dr. Jan Snel of the University of Amsterdam, highlighted coffee's strengths in helping us overcome fatigue and boost our effectiveness in performing difficult tasks. Snel's studies showed that "even the smell of coffee can induce positive changes in brain activity. . . . we all want to perform to the best of our ability and coffee can make an important contribution". So before an important exam, we are now advised to "include drinking coffee as part of your study plan…coffee helps to improve alertness, attention and wakefulness and, by that means, it facilitates relevant learning".

And for night and shift workers, when energy levels are at their lowest around the midnight hour and into the small hours, lack of concentration can lead to serious and sometimes disastrous mistakes. Now, caffeine, equivalent to that found in a cup or two of coffee has been shown to help combat that dangerous lack of attention.

Coffee and your liver


So with all that good news in mind, recent research results showing coffee's added protection for our liver lends even more weight to coffee's positive story.

We all need a healthy and efficient liver if our bodies are to function properly. Next to our skin, it's the largest organ in our body and needs looking after. The latest research now demonstrate that regular intake of coffee has a beneficial effect on liver enzymes and can protect us against cirrhosis of the liver, a disease that causes damage and scarring to the liver tissue and function. A high count of liver enzymes indicates deterioration in the functioning of liver cells and can point to the development of liver disease. A 1993 study in Italy (where, of course, hundreds of gallons of espresso are downed every day) showed that big coffee drinkers had lower levels of liver enzymes than non-coffee drinkers. Other studies in Japan showed that middle-aged men appeared to be protected against liver dysfunction by drinking coffee.

There are three activities that can cause damage to our livers - heavy drinking, heavy smoking and overeating that results in obesity. Coffee can help protect people who indulge in one of all of those.

Early studies at the beginning of the 1990s showed that people who consumed high quantities of alcohol but also drank four cups of coffee every day, were at one-fifth the risk of cirrhosis experienced by people who consumed similar quantities of alcohol consumers but who did not drink coffee. Similar results have now been shown in tests carried out on heavy smokers and people who are overweight.

In a further study carried out in 2002, coffee was shown to offer even more significant levels of protection against the increase of enzyme activity and damage caused by toxic substances.

More good news


And on top of all that comforting information, come two more encouraging sets of results. Scientists now also believe that drinking coffee can help protect us against cancer of the large bowel and reduce the risk of gallbladder disease. Positive results to depend on how much coffee you drink, but so far it seems that 2-3 cups of coffee a day reduce the risk of developing gallstones by 40%, while 4 or more cups reduce the risk by 45%.

One large study, the Health Professional Follow Up Study, monitored the coffee intake of 46,008 men who had no history of gallstone disease.

Results published in the journal of the American Medical Association in 1999 showed a reduction of risk of 30 - 40% and, where coffee consumption was higher (4 or more cups a day), the risk was cut by half. More recent studies carried out in 2002 have highlighted a similar effect in women. A 20 year study of 80,898 women aged 34 to 59 and with no history of gallstone disease showed that the more coffee you drank, the better.

So, is it the caffeine that is the major player here? Caffeine is certainly crucial in protecting against gallbladder disease since it is the effects of caffeine consumption that increase bale flow and inhibit the development of gallstones. But given that it is specifically coffee that has these beneficial effects against liver disease and not other beverages that contain caffeine, scientists think that it is the cafestol and kahweol (and possibly other substances found in coffee) that work against cirrhosis and other liver dysfunction. Both substances have shown cancer-protective activity in animal experiments where relatively large doses were given.

Spreading the world


The good news about coffee and liver disease was broken at the 2003 Tea & Coffee World Cup Symposium in Rome last June by Professor D' Amicis, Head of Nutrition Information Unit in INRAN. He told his audience, "Such significant data shows us how drinking coffee could provide a real benefit to our health."

The seminar was organised by Sylvia Robert-Sargeant, Coordinator since 2001 of the Positively Coffee Program. The program was initiated by the European coffee sector and has been implemented through the Private Sector Consultative Board of the ICO.

Since its inception, positively coffee has launched a pilot project on antioxidants, coinciding with the world coffee conference in London in 2001, has developed the positively coffee newsletter and has set up its own website at www.positivelycoffee.org to help tell the world about coffee's positive health message.

The message that coffee contains antioxidants, which are increasingly being recognized as helping to guard against certain cancers and other degenerative diseases, is key to the positively coffee campaign. The winter 2002/03 newsletter tells readers, "Latest findings show a statistically significant increase of blood plasma antioxidant capacity after coffee drinking. This increase in antioxidant activity was related to the increase of free caffeic acid observed in human blood plasma after coffee consumption."

Some consumers around the world do avoid coffee, or they drink less than perhaps they otherwise would, simply because of their worries about health. Now it seems that there are more reasons to drink coffee - and instead of worrying, look forward to its, long-term beneficial effects. With all the recent research, positively coffee is now finding it easier to persuade consumers that coffee really does offer positive health effects as well as all the enjoyment that we get from drinking a cup of coffee.