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A new study has disclosed that the risk associated with degeneration of liver lowers by 53% in people suffering from chronic Hepatitis C who intake at least 3 cups of coffee a day.
According to the Neal Freedman of National Cancer Institute study, coffee has been proved to be beneficial in those hepatitis C related cirrhosis patients who have not shown any response toward treatment. But green or black tea has proved to have no impact.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects approximately 2.2% of the world's population, including three million Americans. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has mentioned HCV as the leading cause of liver transplantation in US, accounting for 8,000 to 10,000 deaths, annually.
This study was conducted on about 766 participants who were being treated with the Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-Term Treatment against Cirrhosis (HALT-C) trial and did not respond to anti-viral drugs peginterferon and ribavirin, according to an NCI release.
The patients were checked on a quarterly basis for a period of 3.8 years to understand the clinical results. Liver biopsies were taken at 1.5 and 3.5 yeasr to study the spread of the disease.
"Results from our study suggest that patients with high coffee intake had a lower risk of disease progression," said Freedman.
These findings will appear in the November issue of Hepatology.
