Article source: news.google.com

A good cup of coffee really helps one shake off the cobwebs before starting the day. Fortunately, a new study from researchers at the Mayo Clinic reveals that drinking coffee has an added benefit: regular imbibing of this delicious drink is linked with a lowered risk of primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). PSC is an autoimmune liver disease that is very rare.

Study author Craig Lammert, a Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist, says that PSC isn’t kind to the body and can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, liver failure and biliary cancer. According to Dr. Lammert, this discovery suggests that coffee can not only lower the risk of PSC, but that it might help researchers figure out the cause of this disease and other awful autoimmune diseases.

Researchers took a look at PSC and primary biliary cirrhosis patients and compared them to a group of healthy patients. Their findings revealed that coffee drinking was linked to a lowered risk of PSC, but not PBC. The researchers also learned that PSC patients were much likelier not to drink coffee than the control group. Furthermore, the PSC patients also used up 20 percent less of their time regularly consuming coffee than the healthy patients.

According to senior study author Konstantinos Lazaridis, a Mayo Clinic hepatologist, there are more differences between PSC and PBC than researchers originally believed. Though additional research is necessary, Dr. Lazaridis says that their findings might give researchers more information about the causes of these devastating diseases and how to more effectively deal with them in a clinical setting.

Studies have shown coffee consumption to have numerous health benefits. Researchers from the European Science Foundation reported in December 2012 that moderate coffee drinking may reduce risk of diabetes by up to 25 percent. The report revealed that drinking three to four cups of coffee per day is linked to an about 25 percent lower risk of getting type 2 diabetes, versus drinking none or less than two cups per day.

There was also a study at Lund University in Sweden that discovered that consuming coffee could lower the risk of breast cancer recurring in patients taking the frequently used drug Tamoxifen. Patients who took the drug, as well as two or more cups of coffee on a daily basis, reported less than half the rate of cancer recurrence, compared with patients who took the drug and consumed one cup of coffee or less.

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