Regular coffee drinking only, without healthy lifestyle, does prevent diabetes

According to her, coffee has its negative effects, such as making some individuals tremble, anxious, have difficulties sleeping, and raise their heart rate, even though it lowers cardiovascular risk in those with type 2 diabetes.

A study published online in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported that regular coffee consumption without any additives reduces the risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D) by 10 per cent per cup, but this protection is significantly weakened when sugar or artificial sweeteners are added.

In addition, it said adding cream doesn’t affect coffee’s protective benefits, but adding coffee whitener shows a trend toward reduced protection.

Dr Esan declared, “So we’ll wait for conclusions from meta-analysis to be sure exactly what coffee does to the body.”

The medical expert said it is best for individuals, whether or not they have diabetes, to do away with adding sugar to their coffee to end up with more calories.

She said what is proven to prevent diabetes and its complications is a healthy lifestyle. This includes doing away with added sugar, having a healthy balanced diet, abstaining from smoking and alcohol use, having up to four portions of vegetables and fruits per day, and exercising at least 30 minutes five times a week.

According to her: “Those are things established to reduce the risk of developing diabetes. For example, if somebody is eating a lot of fast foods and consuming a lot of sugary drinks and then says, I’m drinking black coffee. I don’t see how that will prevent diabetes.

“It is the same thing, somebody with diabetes, not taking his prescribed medications, following the dietary advice and taking his blood pressure medications cannot reduce their cardiovascular risk by just taking coffee.”

Dr Esan said every Nigerian is at risk of diabetes, being Africans with many having diabetes in their family history, and cautioned on maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Professor Fatai Fehintola, a consultant physician and clinical pharmacologist, in a remark, said from basic physiology, individuals who enjoy taking their coffee with a load of cream and/or sugar are not likely to benefit from the health benefits of black coffee.

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“Coffee has a number of what I would call advantages, in terms of trying to help in burning energy. If it burns energy, of course, it will affect the blood sugar level based on the amount and content of the coffee. There is a need for further well-controlled studies in humans across all races,” he said.

Researchers analysed the association between coffee consumption and the risk for T2D in 150,106 participants from three large prospective US-based cohort studies by reviewing the inclusion of sugar, artificial sweeteners, cream, or non-dairy coffee whiteners; participants were followed up for 3,665,408 person-years.

They reported that each additional cup of coffee consumed without additives was associated with a 10 per cent lower risk for T2D in the pooled analysis of three cohorts. Every cup of coffee consumed with sugar was associated with a 5 per cent lower risk for T2D; a 7 per cent risk attenuation was observed with the artificial sweetener addition.