You can now
stop feeling guilty about the second or third cup of coffee every morning. A
new study published in Nature Medicine has shown an inverse association between
caffeine intake and age related morbidity and mortality.
An inverse
association exist between amount of tea and coffee consumed and long term morbidity
has been suggested in many earlier studies, but the mechanism about this cause
and effect relationship was not clear.
The study
focused on cells of coffee drinker and non-coffee drinker and found that those
who consumed high levels of caffeine tend to have lower levels of inflammation.
Inflammasomes are protein complexes that regulate
expression of interleukin-1 (IL-1) family cytokines, and are central to the
regulation of a broad variety of inflammatory disease processes, A culprit
responsible for many things like aging, cancer, heart disease, Type 2 DM and
Alzheimer’s.
Whole blood
gene expression was measured by microarray from blood samples provided by 100
young and old people. They found that as people age they show a higher activity
of Inflammasomes genes associated with the production of a circulating
inflammatory protein, called interleukin-1β (IL-1-beta). Older people had
significantly high levels of this inflammatory protein.
They further
sub analyzed the older group, and after controlling for other confounders found
out that those people who consumed at least 5 or more cup of coffee per day
have the lowest level of inflammation in the body. The other groups with low caffeine
intake had elevated oxidative stress, high rates of hypertension and arterial
stiffness. They were also more likely to die during the 8 years of follow up of
the study participants.
The
researchers than isolated the protein, IL-1-beta and injected it into mice. It
triggered massive systematic inflammation and arterial stiffness.
They then added
IL-1-beta to human immune cells in the lab, followed by adding caffeine into
the mix, too. They discovered that caffeine prevented those compounds from
producing their inflammatory effects.
“The more
caffeine people consumed, the more protected they were against a chronic state
of inflammation,” says study author David Furman, consulting associate
professor at the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection at
Stanford University. “There was no boundary, apparently.”
"Most
of the diseases of aging are not really diseases of aging, per se, but rather
diseases of inflammation,” he further added.
The study is
important because it traces novel connection between aging and chronic diseases
via Inflammasomes. Inflammatory high expressors and the downward spiral towards
many chronic diseases awaits further research. But, interestingly high caffeine
levels were found to be associated with low expressors and protective against age
related morbidity and mortality.
Further
studies with large sample size are underway, till then, most of us can continue
drinking coffee without feeling guilt over the second or third cup in the morning.
