Thursday, 3 April 2014 HealthDay News)-coffee drink that can reduce risk of death from specific liver cirrhosis, suggests a large new study suggests.
The study included more than 63,000 Chinese, from 45 to 74 years who lives in Singapore. In 1993, they included information about their diet, lifestyle and medical history, and for an average of nearly 15 years followed. During this period, 114 of the study participants died of cirrhosis of the liver.
Two or more cups of coffee was a day with a 66 percent lower risk of death from cirrhosis of the liver caused by non-viral hepatitis, according to the study published online recently in the journal of Hepatology.
While viruses are responsible for most cases of hepatitis, it can also develop due to alcohol and drug abuse or if the immune system is attacking mistakenly healthy liver cells according to the US national institutes of health.
In the new study coffee consumption has not mitigated, but the risk of death in cirrhosis of the liver caused by the hepatitis B virus.
Drinking, tea, fruit juices or soft drinks had no effect on the risk of death from cirrhosis of the liver, while heavy drinking the risk increased, suggest the results.
While the study a correlation between caffeine consumption and lower risk for death by cirrhosis of the liver in certain patients found, it does not prove a cause-and effect relationship.
The study is the first, the different effect show that coffee on the risk of death by non-viral and viral hepatitis associated with cirrhosis of the liver, according to researcher Dr. Woon-Puay Koh, the Duke-NUS graduate medical school Singapore and the National University of Singapore.
"This finding solves the seemingly contradictory results about the effects of coffee in Western and Asia-based studies of death from cirrhosis of the liver,", Koh said in a magazine press release.
"Our finding suggests that while the advantage the coffee may be less obvious as is likely in the Asian population where currently outweighs chronic viral hepatitis B, to change, as the incidence of non-viral hepatitis associated with cirrhosis of the liver is expected to increase, in these regions", said Koh. He attributed an increase of prosperity and "Westernizing" lifestyles in younger groups likely to change.
Cirrhosis of the liver is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). A 2004 report said the cirrhosis 1.3 per cent of all deaths accounts for worldwide per year.