Like I said last update, this marks the end of Caffeine Week. And this one is just a quickie, mostly because I’m going to briefly discuss a mouse study and I really don’t see the need to go into a ton of detail unless there are humans involved.

Researchers from Nagoya, Japan fed genetically modified mice water or coffee for five weeks. The mice are genetically modified so that they inevitably develop type II diabetes, develop fatty livers, have high inflammatory markers and generally replicate the model of the average unhealthy, overweight Westerner. The researchers noted that those given coffee had improvements in insulin sensitivity and improved the fatty liver. I suppose I should point out here that the coffee the mice were given was not the 760kcal Venti White Chocolate Blended Creme Frappuccino with added whipping cream from Starbucks. Seriously? 760 calories in a drink? Really America? Really?

I know what you’re saying, this is a study done in genetically modified mice. But this isn’t the only published study showing that regular coffee use is associated with reduced chances of developing type II diabetes. And this link has been found in humans also. But to link a few here, here, here, here and here. Before anyone freaks out, please bear in mind this is an association, and i’m sure you’re all familiar with the old saying “correlation does not imply causation”.

Well I guess this marks the end of Caffeine Week. In this series of articles I have mentioned about caffeine’s potential ergogenic effects, but I haven’t mentioned anything about its use for fat loss, or the high antioxidant capacity of coffee. Maybe I’ll save that for a future article. Folks, its been emotional.

Source: Yamauchi R, Kobayashi M, Matsuda Y, Ojika M, Shigeoka S, Yamamoto Y, Tou Y, Inoue T, Katagiri T, Murai A, Horio F. Coffee and caffeine ameliorate hyperglycemia, fatty liver, and inflammatory adipocytokine expression in spontaneously diabetic KK-Ay mice. J Agric Food Chem. 2010 May 12;58(9):5597-603.