Coffee can reduce diabetes risk

This is yet another research finding that has driven coffee from its universal role as a breakfast beverage into the list of items that can be recommended for a healthy diet and lifestyle.

For instance, recently researchers at the University of Southern California in the US — in a study of more than 180,000 participants — found that drinking coffee could lead to a longer life.Researchers have also earlier identified substances in coffee that could help reduce the risk of developing diabetes but ‘cafestol’ is one substance that has so far been untested. In their study, the researchers wanted to see if ‘cafestol’ would help prevent or delay the onset of Type-2 diabetes in mice. The findings have been reported in the American Chemical Society Jourl of tural Products.

According to the authors, “the finding could spur the development of new drugs to treat or even prevent the disease”. While all the mice consumed normal diet, the mice in the treatment group were fed daily with ‘cafestol’ for 10 weeks. The animals in the control group were not given ‘cafestol’. At the end, blood samples for fasting glucose, glucagon and insulin as well as liver, muscle and fat tissues for gene expression alysis were collected. The researchers isolated islets of Langerhans — which produce insulin — and measured their insulin secretory capacity. (IANS)