Why drinking coffee cuts diabetes risk

Sunday, January 30, 2011
Numerous studies have shown that coffee protects against type 2 diabetes. Yet no one has really understood why. Early studies have consistently shown an inverse association between coffee consumption and risk for type 2 diabetes, that is, the greater the consumption of coffee, the lesser the risk of diabetes. It was thought that coffee may improve the body's tolerance to glucose by increasing metabolism or improving its tolerance to insulin.

Researchers in the United States have now discovered a possible molecular mechanism behind coffee's protective effect. A protein called sex hormone–binding globulin (SHBG) regulates the biological activity of the body's sex hormones, testosterone and estrogen, which have long been thought to play a role in the development of type 2 diabetes.

To examine whether plasma levels of SHBG may account for the inverse association between coffee consumption and type 2 diabetes risks, researchers compared 359 American postmenopausal women with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes with 359 non-diabetic women.

It was found that women who drank four cups of caffeinated coffee each day had significantly higher levels of SHBG than did non-drinkers and were half as likely to develop diabetes than were non-coffee drinkers. When the findings were adjusted for blood SHBG levels, the decrease in risk associated with coffee consumption was not significant, suggesting that it is SHBG that mediates the decrease in risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Many clinical studies have revealed the important role of sex hormones in the development of type 2 diabetes, and it's known that SHBG not only regulates the sex hormones that are biologically active but may also bind to receptors in a variety of cells, directly mediating the signaling of sex hormones. The findings of this study suggest that SHBG in the blood does reflect a genetic susceptibility to developing type 2 diabetes and that this protein can be influenced by dietary factors such as coffee intake in affecting diabetes risk.

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