Drinking more coffee may help reduce liver damage associated with excessive alcohol intake.
According to Business insider.com, researchers analyzed data from nine previously published studies with a total of more than 430,000 participants.
They found that drinking two additional cups of coffee a day was linked to a 44% lower risk of developing liver cirrhosis.
“Cirrhosis is potentially fatal and there is no cure as such,” Dr. Oliver Kennedy of Southampton University in the U.K told Businessinsider.com.
“Therefore, it is significant that the risk of developing cirrhosis may be reduced by consumption of coffee, a cheap, ubiquitous and well-tolerated beverage,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy and colleagues did a pooled analysis of average coffee consumption across earlier studies to see how much adding two additional cups each day might influence the odds of liver disease.
Combined, the studies included 1,990 patients with cirrhosis.
In eight of the nine studies analyzed, increasing coffee consumption by two cups a day was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of cirrhosis.