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Daily coffee consumption may reduce risk for cirrhosis

In a systematic review and meta-analysis, researchers in the UK found that increased coffee consumption reduced the risk for cirrhosis, according to published findings in Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

“This meta-analysis shows that an increase in daily coffee consumption of two cups is associated with a near halving of the risk of cirrhosis,” O.J. Kennedy, MD, of the University of Southampton, UK, and colleagues wrote.

Kennedy and researchers found and analyzed five cohort and four case studies published through July 2015 in the PubMed, Embase and Web of Science databases, which reported odds ratios, relative risks (RRs) or hazard ratios for cirrhosis stratified by coffee consumption.

“We assessed the risk of bias in each study and the overall quality of evidence for the effect of coffee on cirrhosis,” the researchers wrote.

Overall, 1,990 cases and 432,133 participants were included in the analyses. Researchers found evidence of dose-response in a majority of the studies and overall. In eight studies, increasing coffee consumption by two cups per day was associated with a reduction in risk for cirrhosis.

The pooled RR of cirrhosis for a daily increase in coffee consumption of two cups was 0.56 (95% CI, 0.44-0.68). The pooled RR from cohort studies for a daily increase of two cups was 0.58 (95% CI, 0.41-0.76). The pooled RR from the case-control studies was 0.52 (95% CI, 0.4-0.63).

The pooled RR of alcoholic cirrhosis for a daily increase of two cups was 0.62 (95% CI, 0.51-0.73). The pooled RR of mortality from cirrhosis for a daily increase of two cups was 0.55 (95% CI, 0.35-0.74).

“The findings of this meta-analysis are important given the high incidence of severe liver disease, the positive interaction between alcohol and obesity for liver disease risk and the lack of specific treatments to prevent liver disease due to these factors,” the researchers wrote.

“The next steps should be to develop interventions that support patients at risk of or with mild [to] moderate [chronic liver disease], to increase their coffee consumption, even in existing coffee drinkers given the dose-response relationship, and then to evaluate the effect of increasing consumption on robust markers of [chronic liver disease] in well-designed randomized studies,” the researchers concluded. – by Melinda Stevens

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.