Drinking Four Cups Of Coffee Daily Could Help Reduce Obesity – Research

For those who have made drinking coffee a regular habit, research has shown that they may be doing themselves a lot of good, especially, if they hope to keep excess body fat at bay. According to research, four cups of coffee per day could reduce the level of fat a person gains after eating unhealthy food. A team of scientist from the University of Illinois, who set out to experiment a type of herbal tea called mate tea to see if it had health benefits, and also if caffeine found from coffee had the same effect on rats.

The rats consumed the equivalent caffeine of four cups of coffee and ate a carbohydrate-heavy diet high in fat and sugar for four weeks in which they gained 16 per cent less weight than rats in a non-caffeine group and built up 22 percent less body fat.The researchers, who gave the rats the amounts of caffeine, which would be equal to that found in four cups of brewed coffee for a human, found that the rats’ weight gain was reduced by 16 percent and their fat build-up by 22 percent. The experiment discovered that caffeine stopped the body from producing as much fat in the blood and meant fat cells stored less inside them than normal.The scientists said this could be because the effects of caffeine reduce action in a gene, which is known to contribute to weight gain.An author of the study published in The Journal of Function Foods, Dr. Elvira Gonzalez de Mejia, said the beverages could be considered ‘anti-obesity agents.’

“Considering the findings, mate tea and caffeine can be considered anti-obesity agents.

The results of this research could be scaled to humans to understand the roles of mate tea and caffeine as potential strategies to prevent overweight and obesity, as well as the subsequent metabolic disorders associated with these conditions.

The consumption of caffeine from mate or from other sources alleviated the negative impact of a high-fat, high [sugar] diet on body composition due to the modulation of certain enzymes in both [fat] tissue and the liver.”

The team of researchers gave the rats mate tea, which is an herbal hot drink popular in Latin America and packed with phytochemicals, flavonoids, and amino acids. This contains about 65 to 130mg of caffeine per serving, compared to between 30 and 300mg (average 95mg) in a cup of brewed coffee, the researchers said.

The animals were also given synthetic caffeine and caffeine extracted from coffee to compare the effects. They found that, regardless of its source, caffeine decreased the accumulation of lipids (fat molecules) in fat cells by between 20 and 41 percent. At the end of the experiment, the team said the amount of body fat on the rats, which consumed caffeine, and those that did not was ‘significantly’ different.

The team explained this effect was probably caused by the effects caffeine had on two genes in particular – Fasn, the fatty acid synthase gene, which was about 31-39 percent less active in the rats which were being fed caffeine, meaning the body was converting less sugar into fat and Lpl, the lipoprotein lipase gene, which was around 51-69 percent less active, which also reduced the amount of fat which was created.

The suppression of these genes also meant less cholesterol was produced in the liver, the study added. Meanwhile, a research by the National Cancer Institute in the United States had last year found people who drink six or seven cups of coffee each day to be 16 percent less likely to die from disease within a 10-year period than those who did not.