14 DAY TRIAL // Coffee is supposed to wake us up in the morning, and whenever we feel a bit tired, and there are several studies that have shown it can also protect us from type 2 diabetes.
The only problem is that nobody knows exactly how, except a team of researchers from UCLA, who think they have identified the molecular mechanism behind this prophylactic effect.
It could all come down to one protein, called SHBG – sex hormone-binding globulin, that regulates the biological activity of the testosterone and estrogen within the body.
First author Atsushi Goto, a UCLA doctoral student in epidemiology, and Dr. Simin Liu, a professor of epidemiology and medicine with joint appointments at the UCLA School of Public Health and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, have shown that coffee consumption increases plasma levels of SHBG.
So, according to their study, women who drink at least four cups of coffee a day are less than half as likely to develop diabetes as those who don't drink coffee at all.
For their research, they identified 359 new diabetes cases matched by age and race with 359 apparently healthy controls selected from almost 40,000 women enrolled in the Women's Health Study.
The results showed that women who drank four cups of caffeinated coffee every day, had significantly higher levels of SHBG than non-drinkers, and were also 56% less likely to develop diabetes than controls.
Also, the news isn't great for decaf lovers – “consumption of decaffeinated coffee was not significantly associated with SHBG levels, nor diabetes risk,” Goto said.
“So you probably have to go for the octane!”
Liu said that according to early studies, there is an 'inverse association' between coffee consumption and risk for type 2 diabetes, which means that the higher the consumption of coffee, the lower the risk of diabetes.
Researchers believed that coffee could ameliorate the body's tolerance to glucose by increasing metabolism or improving insulin tolerance.
“But exactly how is elusive, although we now know that this protein, SHBG, is critical as an early target for assessing the risk and prevention of the onset of diabetes,” said Liu, who had previously focused on the matter.
His earlier work along with his colleagues, was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
They had isolated two mutations in the gene coding for SHBG and identified their effect on the risk of developing type 2 diabetes – one increases risk while the other decreases it, depending on the levels of SHBG in the blood.
Goto said that the “genetic evidence significantly advanced the field, because it indicated that SHBG may indeed play a causal role in affecting risk for type 2 diabetes."
“It seems that SHBG in the blood does reflect a genetic susceptibility to developing type 2 diabetes,” Liu added.
“But we now further show that this protein can be influenced by dietary factors such as coffee intake in affecting diabetes risk — the lower the levels of SHBG, the greater the risk beyond any known diabetes risk factors.”
The American Diabetes Association estimates that in the United States, there are approximately 24 million children and adults – which account for nearly 8% of the population, who suffer from diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of the disease and it represents about 90%-95% of these cases.
The Women's Health Study is a large-scale cardiovascular trial, that was originally started to assess the benefits and risks of low-dose aspirin and vitamin E in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Now, if you're not sure whether you like coffee or not, or if you just want to relax for a few minutes and maybe have a good laugh, here's a viral video to start the day with: