
Can Drinking Coffee Help Prevent Type 2 Diabetes?
If you begin your day with a steaming cup of joe, you could be protecting your health along with jump-starting your morning. That's because research shows coffee may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. But how much do you need to drink to reap the potential benefits?
What the Research Says
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women’s Hospital conducted one of the biggest long-term studies on the relationship between coffee and type 2 diabetes in 2004. They found that the more coffee people drank, the greater the protection against diabetes.
The study followed 41,934 men for 12 years and 84,276 women for 18 years. At the beginning of the study, the participants did not have type 2 diabetes. They were asked to answer questions about their coffee-drinking habits (regular and decaffeinated) every two to four years. During that time, 1,333 new cases of type 2 diabetes were reported among the men and 4,085 cases were reported among the women.
Men who reported drinking more than six cups of regular, caffeinated coffee per day cut their risk of developing type 2 diabetes in half when compared to nondrinkers of coffee. Women who reported drinking that much cut their risk by about 30 percent. Decaffeinated coffee also showed benefits, but the results were weaker.
Another study suggested that the more coffee you drink, the better. In the same year as the Harvard study, researchers in Finland, the country with the highest per capita coffee consumption in the world, found that the risk of developing diabetes appeared significantly lower in people who dran
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