Coffee protects alcohol drinkers from liver damage, study says

GlobalPost

A new study has found that coffee protects your liver from alcohol damage. Let's celebrate by chasing vodka shots with espresso shots. 

Researchers looked at 19,000 Finnish men and women and found that the men who drank both alcohol and coffee heavily had a lower risk of liver damage than the men who only drank alcohol heavily. The findings are published in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism

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"Our findings suggest a possible protective effect for coffee intake in alcohol consumers," study researcher Dr. Onni Niemelä, of Seinäjoki Central Hospital and the University of Tampere in Finland, told Live Science

This isn't the first time the connection has been made. Back in 2006, researchers looked at a whopping 125,000 people and found that drinking as little as one cup of coffee a day could lower your risk of alcohol-caused liver disease by 20 percent. And the protective effect seemed to increase with the more coffee people drank, the Guardian reported.

According to the Harvard Medical School newsletter, coffee drinking lowers levels of enzymes that indicate liver damage and may also protect against liver cancer and improve responses to hepatitis C treatments. 

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