Coffee-loving diabetics, watch out! Although some studies have shown that coffee drinking may actually help prevent or regulate diabetes, the evidence seems to suggest that caffeine actually worsens diabetic symptoms. In fact, caffeine appears to outweigh all the benefits that coffee would otherwise provide.
Researchers from Duke University have conducted several studies into the effects of caffeine on people with Type 2 diabetes. One such study, published in the journal Diabetes Care in 2004, looked at 11 men and three women who regularly drank the equivalent of roughly four cups of coffee per day.
Participants were either given caffeine in the form of gelatin capsules mixed with dextrose, or a placebo pill of dextrose alone. Those in the experimental group received 250 mg caffeine, taken with water. An hour later, they were given another 125 mg caffeine along with a commercial liquid meal containing 75 mg carbohydrates.
The researchers found that while caffeine did not affect fasting levels of glucose or insulin response, it did worsen diabetic symptoms after the meal compared with the placebo. When taken with food, caffeine increased blood levels of insulin by 48 percent and increased blood sugar by 21 percent relative to the placebo.
Caffeine increases daily blood sugar
In 2008, the same researchers published a follow-up study in the journal Diabetes Care. They placed continuous blood sugar monitors on 10 participants, all of whom had Type 2 diabetes and averaged four cups of coffee per day. Instead of drinking coffee, the participants were assigned to take one 250 mg caffeine capsule at breakfast and another at lunch; this totaled an amount of caffeine equivalent to what the participants normally consumed. On a separate day, the participants were instead assigned to take placebo pills.
Read more: Natural News