A cup of coffee does more than just wake you up, it could reduce the incidence of fatty liver disease !

Research at Duke University’s School Of Medicine and Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School has shown that upping the levels of caffeine intake can reduce the level of fats associated with the liver, especially in subjects suffering non-alcohol related fatty liver disease (NAFLD) (Sinha et al., 2013).

The ‘fatty liver’ condition occurs in 70% of the population who also have diabetes and obesity but do not drink alcohol excessively. The condition is rising in the western world due to overnutrition, consumption of fructose, fat and lack of exercise.

The study was sponsored as part of the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School’s Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders Program in Singapore. The team looked at the pathway for caffeine induction of lipolysis in the recently discovered non-classical pathway – the autophagy-lysozomal pathway (Sinha et al., 2012). Using mouse based cell culture models, caffeine appeared to mobilise lipids stored in liver cells and reduce the fatty liver present even in animals fed a high-fat diet. Drinking up to four cups or coffee or tea per day could serve to protect against the development of NAFLD and would serve as positive evidence in the light of issues associated with caffeine.

References

Sinha, R.A., Farah, B.L., Singh, B.K. et al., (2013) Caffeine stimulates hepatic lipid metabolism via autophagy-lysosomal pathway. Hepatology. 58 (3) to be published.

http://www.dukehealth.org/health_library/news/coffee-and-tea-may-contribute-to-a-healthy-liver

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hep.26667/pdf

Sinha, R.A., You, S.H., Zhou, J., Siddique, M.M., Bay, B.H., Zhu, X., Privalsky, M.L., et al. (2012) Thyroid hormone stimulates hepatic lipid catabolism via activation of autophagy. J. Clin. Invest. 122 pp. 2428-2438.