Is Coffee Good for Your Liver?

Everything You Need to Know About Coffee and Liver Health

Drink up, coffee lovers. Brew that cup of your favorite dark roast. Mug up with medium roast. Or grab a cold brew on your way out the door. Hot off the (coffee) press—your favorite drink of choice has been deemed good for your liver.

Word on the street is that the tasty, aromatic and bliss-inducing beverage has been linked to more than just making your morning ritual tolerable. In fact, coffee has practically become a health food, especially for responsible coffee drinkers who don’t overdo it and avoid adding fattening cream and sugar to their favorite brew.

Who would’ve thought your caffeine habit is actually quite healthy? The benefits of coffee consumption include a reduced risk of heart failure, Type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, various cancers, Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis—just to name a few.

And now, CNN reports a new study that proves drinking coffee is also a major “perk” for liver health and other alcohol-related diseases. That’s great news for coffee lovers since liver cancer is on the rise.

According to the American Cancer Society, the rate of liver cancer has more than tripled since 1980, while death rates have more than doubled. The factors that contribute to that grim reality probably won’t surprise you: drinking alcohol, obesity, diabetes, hepatitis B and C infections, smoking and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (the buildup of extra fat in liver cells that is not caused by alcohol, which as many as 25% of Americans have today).

So now more than ever before, coffee drinkers can help themselves in a major, caffeinated way. Coffee is widely accessible, and the benefits apparent in the study might suggest it could offer a potential preventative treatment for chronic liver disease, according to CNN.

Researchers found that drinking up to three or four cups of coffee a day can actually reduce your risk of developing (and dying from) chronic liver disease. Specifically, “Coffee drinkers were 21% less likely to develop chronic liver disease, 20% less likely to develop chronic or fatty liver disease, and 49% less likely to die from chronic liver disease than non-coffee drinkers.” 

Bottom line? If you want to be nice to your liver, pour a cup o’ joe. Whether your fav is caffeinated ground, beans, instant or cold brew makes ZERO difference. They all work to give you that surge of get-up-and-go all day long AND zap that liver disease too!

RELATED: Coffee Can Extend Heart Health