Coffee and caffeine consumption reduce the risk of elevated ALT.

[liftsiron]

Coffee and caffeine consumption reduce the risk of elevated ALT.


Interesting study posted by Nandi.


Coffee and caffeine consumption reduce the risk of elevated serum alanine aminotransferase activity in the United States.

Ruhl CE, Everhart JE.

Background & Aims: Based on experimental and epidemiologic studies, we investigated whether coffee and caffeine consumption reduced the risk of elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity in persons at high risk for liver injury in a national, population-based study. Methods: Participants were 5944 adults in the Third US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988-1994, with excessive alcohol consumption, viral hepatitis, iron overload, overweight, or impaired glucose metabolism. Liver injury was indicated by abnormal serum ALT activity (>43 U/L). Results: Elevated ALT activity was found in 8.7% of this high-risk population. In unadjusted analysis, lower ALT activity was associated with increasing consumption of coffee ( P = .001) and caffeine ( P = .001). Multivariate logistic regression analyses showed that the risk of elevated ALT activity declined with increasing intake of coffee ( P for trend = .034) and caffeine ( P < .001). Comparing persons who drank more than 2 cups per day with noncoffee drinkers, the odds ratio was .56 (95% confidence interval, .31-1.0). Comparing persons in the highest caffeine quintile with the lowest, the odds ratio was .31 (95% confidence interval, .16-.61). These relationships were consistent across subgroups at risk for liver injury and were relatively unchanged when analyses included the entire population or when limited to persons without impaired liver function or right upper quadrant pain. Fasting insulin concentrations did not mediate the effects. Conclusions: In this large, national, population-based study, among persons at high risk for liver injury, consumption of coffee and especially caffeine was associated with lower risk of elevated ALT activity.

PMID: 15633120 [PubMed - in process]
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[Drveejay11]

Very very intertesting......thanks Lifts (and Nandi).

 

[DaLinkWent]

From what I got out of this article, and granted I was never in honors English class, was that elevated ALT levels would be a problem if I was prone to some other conditions suck as too much iron, overweight or impaired metabolism. SInce none of these apply would it still elevate the ALT levels to a point where I would need to be concerned?

 

[Thoms]

Please be careful with that information!
Coffee is bad for liver values (alanine aminotransferase) in healthy people.


Coffee bean extracts rich and poor in kahweol both give rise to elevation of liver enzymes in healthy volunteers.

Boekschoten MV, Schouten EG, Katan MB.

Division of Human Nutrition, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Mark.Boekschoten@wur.nl

BACKGROUND: Coffee oil potently raises serum cholesterol levels in humans. The diterpenes cafestol and kahweol are responsible for this elevation. Coffee oil also causes elevation of liver enzyme levels in serum. It has been suggested that cafestol is mainly responsible for the effect on serum cholesterol levels and that kahweol is mainly responsible for the effect on liver enzyme levels. The objective of this study was to investigate whether coffee oil that only contains a minute amount of kahweol indeed does not cause elevation of liver enzyme levels. METHODS: The response of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALAT) and aspartate aminotransferase (ASAT) to Robusta coffee oil (62 mg/day cafestol, 1.6 mg/day kahweol) was measured in 18 healthy volunteers. RESULTS: After nine days one subject was taken off Robusta oil treatment due to an ALAT level of 3.6 times the upper limit of normal (ULN). Another two subjects stopped treatment due to other reasons. After 16 days another two subjects were taken off Robusta oil treatment. One of those subjects had levels of 5.8 ULN for ALAT and 2.0 ULN for ASAT; the other subject had an ALAT level of 12.4 ULN and an ASAT level of 4.7 ULN. It was then decided to terminate the study. The median response of subjects to Robusta oil after 16 days was 0.27 ULN (n = 15, 25th,75th percentile: 0.09;0.53) for ALAT and 0.06 ULN (25th,75th percentile -0.06;0.22) for ASAT. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the effect on liver enzyme levels of coffee oil containing hardly any kahweol is similar to that of coffee oil containing high amounts of kahweol. Therefore it is unlikely that kahweol is the component of coffee oil that is responsible for the effect. Furthermore, we conclude that otherwise unexplained elevation of liver enzyme levels observed in patients might be caused by a switch from consumption of filtered coffee to unfiltered coffee.

 

[1HUGE1]

great read, thanks.

 

[pineapple]

Please be careful with that information!
Coffee is bad for liver values (alanine aminotransferase) in healthy people.


Coffee bean extracts rich and poor in kahweol both give rise to elevation of liver enzymes in healthy volunteers.

Boekschoten MV, Schouten EG, Katan MB.

Division of Human Nutrition, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. Mark.Boekschoten@wur.nl

BACKGROUND: Coffee oil potently raises serum cholesterol levels in humans. The diterpenes cafestol and kahweol are responsible for this elevation. Coffee oil also causes elevation of liver enzyme levels in serum. It has been suggested that cafestol is mainly responsible for the effect on serum cholesterol levels and that kahweol is mainly responsible for the effect on liver enzyme levels. The objective of this study was to investigate whether coffee oil that only contains a minute amount of kahweol indeed does not cause elevation of liver enzyme levels. METHODS: The response of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALAT) and aspartate aminotransferase (ASAT) to Robusta coffee oil (62 mg/day cafestol, 1.6 mg/day kahweol) was measured in 18 healthy volunteers. RESULTS: After nine days one subject was taken off Robusta oil treatment due to an ALAT level of 3.6 times the upper limit of normal (ULN). Another two subjects stopped treatment due to other reasons. After 16 days another two subjects were taken off Robusta oil treatment. One of those subjects had levels of 5.8 ULN for ALAT and 2.0 ULN for ASAT; the other subject had an ALAT level of 12.4 ULN and an ASAT level of 4.7 ULN. It was then decided to terminate the study. The median response of subjects to Robusta oil after 16 days was 0.27 ULN (n = 15, 25th,75th percentile: 0.09;0.53) for ALAT and 0.06 ULN (25th,75th percentile -0.06;0.22) for ASAT. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the effect on liver enzyme levels of coffee oil containing hardly any kahweol is similar to that of coffee oil containing high amounts of kahweol. Therefore it is unlikely that kahweol is the component of coffee oil that is responsible for the effect. Furthermore, we conclude that otherwise unexplained elevation of liver enzyme levels observed in patients might be caused by a switch from consumption of filtered coffee to unfiltered coffee.

Conclution is that maybe it's the unfiltered coffee that's bad for you, not filtered.