Do These Compounds Protect Against Diabetes?

If you drink coffee you can live forever, at least that seems to be the thinking in an increasing number of academic circles.

Science has already found that people who regularly have a couple of coffees a day live longer than those who don’t, and a now a new study has been published which suggests that there are certain components in our favourite drink that can certifiably protect against type-2 diabetes.

Published in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Natural Products, a team of researchers have unearthed two specific compounds that can lower the risk of diabetes.

Now, the link between coffee and diabetes was first uncovered a couple of years ago. And, a couple of months ago, a report in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition determined that “habitual coffee drinkers were 54% less likely to [contract] diabetes.”

But while scientists knew that there was a connection, they were unsure as to why the connection was there. Some thought that caffeine was the key, other thought otherwise.

Basically, nobody had a clue.

Yet this new study, conducted by a team from Aarhus University Hospital, has put forward two components which appear to combat the symptoms of diabetes: Cafestol and caffeic acid. And both are found in caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee.

The researchers found that cafestol increased the blood sugar intake of certain cells and that the pair of compounds increased the rate of which insulin was secreted.

Naturally, given that cafestol performed ‘double duty’ in the results suggests that it’s important and remarkable.

Unfortunately, there is a ‘but’.

Because the study was conducted with cells taken from rats, it remains unconfirmed whether the compounds in question would react the same way in humans.

And, it is worth pointing out, that the researchers believe numerous other bits and bobs play their part as well.