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Coffee affects health in many ways. It is linked to a longer lifespan and lowers the risk of many diseases.
An international team of researchers has found that the stool samples of coffee drinkers contain more often and more abundantly one specific species of bacteria compared to non-coffee drinkers.
The difference was visible when drinking both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee.
Researchers do not know how the bacterium in question may affect health.
Foods and drinks can affect our health for better or for worse.
Coffee can have many health benefits. Drinking coffee seems to take longer lifetimeand it also reduces the likelihood of getting sick to type two diabetesto non-alcoholic for fatty liver disease and to cancer.
On the other hand, in some studies, heavy coffee drinking is attached also to health hazards – among other things to the deterioration of information processing.
Since some of the health effects of food and drink occur through our intestines, an international team of researchers has now found out how drinking coffee is reflected in the intestinal microbiome.
“Intestinal microbiome participates in the metabolism of coffee and possibly mediates its health effects”, researcher from the Italian University of Trento Paolo Manghi and his colleagues are writing in his research in the journal Nature Microbiology.
A stool sample gives a clue as to whether a person drinks coffee. One strain of bacteria stands out from coffee drinkers’ poop.
With coffee has the strongest connection with the gut microbiota out of about 150 food substances, the same group of researchers has observed already before.
Now the researchers looked at the health data of almost 23,000 people living in Britain and the United States, and in addition, they included the data of more than 54,000 people from different parts of the world from public databases. In addition, they analyzed more than 400 plasma samples and more than 350 stool samples.
The effect of coffee on the composition of the gut microbiota is easier to study than many other foods, because people usually drink it either daily or not at all. For example, the consumption of broccoli and its effects would be more difficult to distinguish, researchers compare the University of Trento in the bulletin.
The researchers found one distinct difference between coffee drinkers and non-coffee drinkers. It was more frequent and abundant in the stool samples of coffee drinkers Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus – named bacterial species. Coffee drinkers clearly had more of it – 4.5 to 8 times – and the difference was visible all over the world.
Real coffee drinkers had the bacteria in question the most in their feces.
The strain showed both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee lines. L. asaccharolyticus –the connection between the bacterial strain and coffee does not seem to be purely due to caffeine, the researchers concluded.
People who drink less than three cups per month were classified as non-coffee drinkers.
The group also ensured the connection of coffee in test dish cultures L. asaccharolyticus – to the growth of the population.
Researchers do not know whether the bacteria in question is potentially beneficial or harmful to health.
The professor of genetics at the University of Trento who led the research Nicola Segata estimates that it would not play a very significant role in itself. However, drinking coffee increases it very strongly L. asaccharolyticus –presence of bacteria.
“This can be important for other bacteria and foods that have more important health effects,” says Segata in the release.
Researchers already have information about which strains of intestinal bacteria have possible beneficial effects. The team is now focusing on finding out which specific foods stimulate the growth of these strains.
Beg and research by colleagues shows that significant strides can be made in the field in the coming years, researchers at the University of Washington Nathan McNulty and Reviewed by Jeffrey Gordon In Nature Microbiology.
They did not participate in the study.