- According to a new study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, drinking filtered coffee may prevent against type 2 diabetes.
- Unfiltered coffee, however, had no effect on preventing the disease.
- There are many other health benefits of coffee, such as reducing your risk of certain cancers, dementia, and stroke.
When you think about your preride prep, chances are, the coffee is just as important as the gels or energy bars you stash in your pockets. Which is good, because the health benefits of coffee, including a decreased risk of certain cancers, dementia, and stroke, are widely known. And while there is evidence that a cup of joe can also protect against the development of type 2 diabetes, new research out of Sweden found that the way you make your coffee might play a bigger role in the disease’s prevention than previously thought.
In the study, published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, researchers looked at data from 421 participants in the Västerbotten Intervention Program (1991 to 2005) who, after about seven years, developed type 2 diabetes and compared them to 421 participants who stayed healthy.
They looked at specific biomarkers in the participants’ blood samples (that were frozen from the Västerbotten Intervention Program) and found that those who drank two to three cups of filtered coffee a day were 60 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who drank only one cup of filtered coffee a day. However, drinking unfiltered coffee—boiled, K-cups, or French press, for example—had no effect on type 2 diabetes risk.
So what’s the deal? While researchers don’t know for sure, the compounds in coffee that are known to elevate your blood lipid and homocysteine (an amino acid) levels—which could lead to type 2 diabetes—get captured in the filter paper and don’t actually make it into the coffee you end up drinking, according to Rikard Landberg, Ph.D., study coauthor and head of the Division of Food and Nutrition Science at Chalmers University of Technology.
While this may seem alarming, Landberg’s takeaway is still a positive one: Coffee isn’t detrimental to your overall health. “Intake of two to three cups per day could make a significant contribution to a healthy lifestyle for prevention of type 2 diabetes,” he told Bicycling.
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While this specific study found that filtered coffee may be best for prevention, coffee, in general, contains chromium, which helps your body utilize insulin (a hormone that regulates your blood sugar).
So if you have a family history of diabetes or simply want to reduce your chances of developing it later in life, go ahead and sip a cup for a jolt of caffeine in the morning as well as an afternoon pick-me-up. It’ll do more than just wake you up.