November 4, 2021 Wiggy Saunders

New Study Sheds Light on How Coffee Affects Your Liver

I know how attached many of my readers are to coffee. I have no idea the exact percentage of them who drink coffee daily, but I’d estimate it’s quite high.

I get it, mornings can be quite rough. As a dad, I’m well acquainted with needing to fully wake up before taking on the day.

Coffee gives people an ability to better adapt to the stresses of life. But, a lot of people get concerned about how it could affect your health.

Well, dear reader, I have some news for you concerning coffee and how it affects your liver.

Best part about waking up to this news is how it confirms another health-boosting benefit for coffee.

And, if you’ve been a reader of my article for any amount of time then you know I love reporting on how coffee helps people live better lives.

Not because I’m a closet barista, or I own stock in Starbucks, but because I believe food-based solutions to health improvements are always the way to go.

That’s a list of some of the articles on the site.

Now, onto this new study and the good news.

How Coffee Can Help to Improve Liver Health

Your liver is a filtering mechanism, and is one of the most important organs in your entire body.

When we talk about detoxing your body, the liver is the main organ doing this. Your kidneys work to do that as well, but they’re not nearly as important as your liver. Hence why you can live with just one.

Thus, anything you can do to help support the health of your liver is a step in the right direction. At least in my opinion, but if you’d like to argue that’s fine :)

People tend to think that coffee has negative effects on our bodies. It makes sense that people think that. The jitteriness that coffee imparts and the taste could leave you to believe that it’s not good for you.

However, as researchers have shown over and over in dozens of studies, the antioxidant properties of coffee, the polyphenol content, are incredibly useful at helping to form a shield around the body.

A recent study of coffee submits that drinking coffee can be one of the best things you could do for your liver.

This study was extremely robust, meaning you can trust their conclusions strongly.

Researchers published the findings that they gleaned from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and with that data they were able to show drinking 3 or more cups of coffee a day is associated with fewer liver problems.

Good news for people who want to extend their lives and operate at full capacity.

I think what’s so cool is how big the study was. You don’t get studies of this size, this often.

The researchers analyzed 4,500 patients' responses after they had submitted their response over the course of 2 years.

The average age of the respondents was 48, which is in line with the vast majority of Americans who are prone to display concern for their liver health.

Another additional measure of health that was important in the findings was the weight of the respondents. 73% of the patients who took the survey were overweight. That’s important because being overweight harms the liver at a faster rate.

So what did they find about those who drank coffee?

It helps to keep your liver strong, flexible, and prepared to work well for a little longer.

They found the patients who drank more than three cups of coffee daily had lower liver stiffness, which is an indication of better liver health. We know through research the stiffer your liver is, the more likely you’ll develop liver fibrosis, and that can lead to you developing cirrhosis in the future.

Cirrhosis is a late stage liver disease and is one of those liver diseases you don’t want to develop. If you do, then your chances of recovering are slim… and your concerns for detoxing are pretty low since you have other issues to worry about.

That’s why if you want to avoid that from happening while also supporting your body’s natural detoxing process coffee looks like the way to go

The study's senior author, Elliot Tapper, MD had this to say about their findings. "This is the closest we're ever going to get to a linkage between what people are eating or drinking and the health of their liver, absent a longitudinal study where we set out to follow people for many, many years,"

Dr. Tapper is an assistant professor of gastroenterology at the University of Michigan so his word counts.

He went on to say that this is going to give doctors, like me, as well as those who specialize in liver health specifically, ammunition for getting their patients healthier while doing this naturally

"There are hepatologists [liver specialists] around the world who are actively recommending coffee—they'll feel empowered by this data," he says.

Heck, I’m glad I can recommend it too.

Just be careful drinking too close to bedtime since the way it affects sleep is one of the few negatives caused by that kind of consumption.