Coffee may help protect against the development of cirrhosis of the liver as a result of heavy drinking, new research suggests. Even so, say the authors, the primary approach to preventing alcoholic cirrhosis is by avoiding or heavy alcohol drinking or to stop drinking altogether.

The suggestion that coffee may lower the risk of alcohol-related liver disease may partly explain why some heavy drinkers develop cirrhosis and some don’t, the authors also note.

The findings are based on 125,580 men and women who did not have liver disease when they entered the study and were examined between 1978 and 1985. These individuals provided information on how much alcohol, coffee and tea they drank per day during the past year. Some of them also had their blood tested for high levels of certain liver enzymes related to liver disease or damage.

By the end of 2001, three hundred thirty subjects had been diagnosed with cirrhosis, including 199 with alcohol-related cirrhosis.

Dr. Arthur L. Klatsky and colleagues at Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Oakland, California found that, for each cup of coffee consumed per day, participants were 22 percent less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis. Drinking coffee also slightly reduced the risk of other types of cirrhosis.

Among individuals who had their blood tested, liver enzyme levels were higher among those who drank more alcohol, indicating liver disease or damage.

However, those who drank alcohol and coffee had lower levels of these enzymes than those who drank alcohol but not coffee. The link was strongest among the heaviest drinkers.

Tea drinking was not associated with reduced risk, suggesting, the authors say, that it’s not the caffeine that is responsible for the relationship between coffee and reduced cirrhosis risk.

The current data “support the hypothesis that there is an ingredient in coffee that protects against cirrhosis, especially alcoholic cirrhosis,” the authors write in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Just what that ingredient is remains to be determined.

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, June 12, 2006.