Extra Cup of Coffee May Reduce Type 2 Diabetes Risk

A recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has reportedly found that “[p]eople who increased the amount of coffee they drank each day by more than one cup over a four-year period had an 11% lower risk for type 2 diabetes than those who made no changes to their coffee consumption.” Shilpa Bhupathiraju et al., “Changes in coffee intake and subsequent risk of type 2 diabetes: three large cohorts of US men and women,” Diabetologia, April 2014. Researchers examined data from the Nurses’ Health Study from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which evaluated participants’ diets every four years from 1986 to 2006 with a questionnaire. Their analysis showed that subjects who increased their coffee intake—the median increase was about a cup and a half each day—during the four-year period between questionnaires had an 11 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the next four-year period. The researchers also found that subjects who decreased their consumption of coffee by more than a cup—with a median drop of two cups per day—had a 17 percent higher risk for diabetes. The study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association. See HSPH Press Release, April 24, 2014.

Issue 522