Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter to the Editor
  • Published:

Coffee, chronic diseases and cancer

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 67, page 898 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

The paper by von Ruesten et al.,1 recently published in the Eur J Clin Nutr, reports data demonstrating that coffee consumption is associated with a significant reduction of chronic diseases overall and, specifically, of type II diabetes but not of cardiovascular diseases or cancer. The authors comment their interesting findings as ‘paradoxical’ but, if this can well be true for sweets and snacks, also inversely correlated in the EPIC-Potsdam study with a reduced risk, it is not certainly so for coffee. Even though not fully confirmed in the preliminary analysis of EPIC-Postdam study data, the protective effects of regular coffee consumption for several neoplastic diseases, including for instance colon cancer, is supported by reviews and meta-analyses.2 Also the evidence in favor of coffee consumption as a protective factor for the development of advanced liver damage and hepatocellular carcinoma is sound and sustained by several case–control studies and by meta-analysis.3 We recently published a prospective randomized controlled study with a crossover design showing that, in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related liver damage, the daily consumption of four cups of coffee induces a reduction in collagen synthesis and in free radical-mediated oxidative DNA damage, and increases the levels of circulating markers of apoptosis.4 In our interpretation, these findings explain, at least in part, the reduction in the progression rate of chronic liver damage toward cirrhosis and cancer.

We think it might be worth to contribute to the discussion by reporting the data we have now available on a new series of 106 patients consecutively referring to our out-patient clinic for disease staging and treatment. All patients were affected by chronic HCV-related liver disease in different stages, and underwent the determination of free radical-mediated oxidative DNA damage in circulating leukocytes. Together with a reduction in the levels of liver damage parameters, such as alkaline phosphatase (ALP), the daily consumption of three or more cups of coffee was linked to almost two times lower levels of 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), a DNA adduct marker of oxidative DNA damage that accumulates, causes mispairing and DNA mutation, and is therefore involved in liver carcinogenetic process5—this with similar disease stage, similar levels of circulating HCV–RNA and a body mass index not significantly different in the two groups (Table 1). The protective effect of coffee with respect to hepatocellular carcinoma, a cancer in which free radical-mediated damage is of major relevance, may be due to the many antioxidant compounds contained in this beverage, among which are polyphenols and many others, or to the induction of antioxidant enzymes, an effect exerted even at very small doses6 or, in any case, when coffee is consumed for a relatively short period of time, as in our previously quoted study.4

Table 1 Mean levels (±s.d.) of oxidative DNA damage (8-OHdG), viral load (HCV–RNA), BMI, ALP and fibrosis stage in two patients’ groups with different coffee consumption
Full size table

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. von Ruesten A, Feller S, Bergmann MM, Boeing H . Diet and risk of chronic diseases: results from the first 8 years of follow-up in the EPIC-Potsdam study. Eur J Clin Nutr 2013; 67: 412–419.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Galeone C, Turati F, La Vecchia C, Tavani A . Coffee consumption and risk of colorectal cancer: a meta-analysis of case-control studies. Cancer Causes Control 2010; 21: 1949–1959.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Bravi F, Bosetti C, Tavani A, Bagnardi V, Gallus S, Negri E et al. Coffee drinking and hepatocellular carcinoma risk: a meta-analysis. Hepatology 2007; 6: 430–435.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Cardin R, Piciocchi M, Martines D, Scribano L, Petracco M, Farinati F . Effects of coffee consumption in chronic hepatitis C: a randomized controlled trial. Dig Liver Dis 2012 2013; 45: 499–504.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Bartsch H, Nair J . Chronic inflammation and oxidative stress in the genesis and perpetuation of cancer: role of lipid peroxidation, DNA damage, and repair. Langenbecks Arch Surg 2006; 391: 499–510.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Vicente SJ, Ishimoto EY, Cruz RJ, Pereira CD, Torres EA . Increase of the activity of phase II antioxidant enzymes in rats after a single dose of coffee. J Agric Food Chem 2011; 59: 10887–10892.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, Section of Gastroenterology, Oncology and Gastroenterology, Padua University, Padua, Italy

    F Farinati, R Cardin & M Piciocchi

Authors
  1. F Farinati
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. R Cardin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. M Piciocchi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to F Farinati.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Farinati, F., Cardin, R. & Piciocchi, M. Coffee, chronic diseases and cancer. Eur J Clin Nutr 67, 898 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2013.111

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ejcn.2013.111

Search

Advanced search

Quick links