Coffee May Help Prevent Liver Cancer

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

Thought this article may be of interest to the group, particularly as this

discussion came up some time ago (If memory serves, I think the conversation

was in regard to toxic methods for decaffeinating coffee, though?).

Peace, n

Coffee May Help Prevent Liver Cancer

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

WASHINGTON (AP) - That hot cup of coffee may do more than just provide a

tasty energy boost. It also may help prevent the most common type of liver

cancer.

A study of more than 90,000 Japanese found that people who drank coffee daily

or nearly every day had half the liver cancer risk of those who never drank

coffee.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 18,920 new cases of liver cancer

were diagnosed in the United States last year and some 14,270 people died of

the illness. Causes include hepatitis, cirrhosis, excess alcohol consumption and

diseases causing chronic inflammation of the liver.

Animal studies have suggested a protective association of coffee with liver

cancer, so the research team led by Monami Inoue of the National Cancer Center

in Tokyo analyzed a 10-year public health study to determine coffee use by

people diagnosed with liver cancer and people who did not have cancer.

They found the likely occurrence of liver cancer in people who never or

almost never drank coffee was 547.2 cases per 100,000 people over 10 years.

But for people who drank coffee daily the risk was 214.6 cases per 100,000,

the researchers report in this week's issue of the Journal of the National Canc

er Institute.

They found that the protective effect occurred in people who drank one to two

cups of coffee a day and increased at three to four cups. They were unable to

compare the effect of regular and decaffeinated coffee, however, because

decaf is rarely consumed in Japan.

It's the caffeine in coffee that makes some people nervous and it has been

shown in other studies to prompt mental alertness in many people. Some studies

have suggested caffeine aggravates symptoms of menopause or intensifies the

side effects of some antibiotics. Heavy caffeine use has been linked to

miscarriage. But studies have also shown that a skin cream spiked with caffeine

lowers

the risk of skin cancer in mice.

``It's an excellent, interesting and provocative study and their conclusions

seem justified,'' commented Dr. R. Palmer Beasley of the University of Texas

M.D. Cancer Center in Houston.

``It will provoke a lot of new work here,'' said Beasley, who was not part of

the research group.

While the study found a statistically significant relationship between

drinking coffee and having less liver cancer, the authors note that it needs to

be

repeated in other groups.

And the reason for the reduction remains unclear.

However, Inoue's team noted that coffee contains large amounts of

antioxidants and several animal studies have indicated those compounds have the

potential

to inhibit cancer in the liver.

In their study, the team also looked at green tea, which contains different

antioxidants, and they found no association between drinking the tea and liver

cancer rates.

``Other unidentified substances may also be responsible'' for the reduction

in cancers, they said.

A separate study reported in the same issue of the journal reported no

relationship between drinking caffeinated coffee or tea and the rates of colon

or

rectal cancer.

However, that analysis did find a 52 percent decline in rectal cancer among

people who regularly drank two or more cups of decaffeinated coffee.

In that study a team led by Karin B. Michels of Brigham and Women's Hospital

in Boston analyzed data from two large studies - the Nurses' Health Study of

women and the Health Professionals' Follow-up Study involving men. The analysis

of nearly 2 million person years found 1,438 cases of colorectal cancer.

While they did not find any association between cancer rates and consumption

of caffeinated coffee or tea, people who regularly drank two or more cups per

day of decaffeinated coffee had about half the incidence of rectal cancer as

those who never drank decaf.

The rate of rectal cancer was 12 cases per 100,000 person-years among those

who consumed two or more cups of decaffeinated coffee per day. For those who

never drank decaffeinated coffee, the rate was 19 cases per 100,000

person-years.

That difference may, however, be due to differences in lifestyle, the

researchers commented, suggesting that drinkers of decaffeinated coffee might be

more

health conscious overall.

The Japanese study was funded by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of

Japan. The U.S. study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

On the Net:

Journal of the National Cancer Institute:

http://jncicancerspectrum.oupjournals.org/

02/15/05 17:32

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