Coffee drinkers raise your cups in delight, if you drink more than two cups a day then your chances of (non viral) cirrhosis are reduced. So says a paper that has been accepted for publication in the journal Hepatogy.
The study looked at the diet and lifestyles of over 63,000 middle aged or older Chinese people. Participants in the study were enrolled between 1993 and 1998 and then the incidence of cirrhosis was recorded after 15 years.
They found that people who consumed two or more cups of coffee a day had a 66% reduction in risk of death from non viral cirrhosis, the same inverse correlation was not seen for viral forms of the disease.
Drinking black tea, green tea, fruit juice or soft drinks did not seem to have an effect on incidence of cirrhosis whereas drinking excessive alcohol had the expected effect of increased incidence.
Time for another brew methinks…