A new study found a connection between coffee consumption and liver disease. Here’s what you need to know.

There’s a lot of information out there regarding coffee and its impact on your health. Recently, a lot of new studies have shown that it’s not all bad when it comes to your caffeine habit; drinking moderate amounts of coffee has been linked with decreased cancer odds, promoting fat burn, and more. Now, there’s a study that links the consumption of coffee with preventing liver disease.

Published in the journal BMC Public Health, the study tracked the development of liver disease in more than 495,000 people for a decade. Participants who drank coffee had 21% less chance of developing chronic liver disease when compared to non-coffee drinkers. Twenty-percent of coffee drinkers also had reduced risk of developing chronic or fatty liver disease.

One of the study’s most interesting findings indicates that if coffee drinkers contracted any type of liver disease, they were much less likely to die from it.

“Coffee is widely accessible and the benefits we see from our study may mean it could offer a potential preventative treatment for chronic liver disease,” said the study’s authors.

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Benefits were stronger for people who consumed ground coffee as opposed to instant coffee. Researchers explain that ground coffee contains higher levels of kahweol and cafestol, elements that have appeared to be beneficial for liver health in different animal studies.

While this is good news for coffee drinkers, study authors warn that coffee consumption was reported when participants first enrolled in the study. Researchers didn’t account for any changes in amount or type of coffee that was consumed over the 10 years that the study took to be published.

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Researchers also note that participants were predominantly white and from a higher socio-economic background, making it difficult to apply these results to a variety of countries and populations.

Future research could help better understand the link that exists between coffee and liver health, hopefully shedding a light on how to prevent or treat this illness with a drink that the majority of people encounter on their everyday to day life.