Here’s the drink that protects against liver cancer, study finds

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Australian researchers have concluded that drinking at least two cups of coffee a day can protect against liver cancer. They urge governments to encourage the consumption of this beverage.

If everyone drinks at least two cups of coffee daily, hundreds of thousands of lives would be saved from liver cancer, a particularly fatal disease, Australian scientists explained in the journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

Researchers believe that governments should start encouraging people to drink more coffee. Indeed, several studies in recent years have shown that drinking coffee can have many health benefits if consumed regularly.

For example, those who drink two to three cups of coffee a day see a 38% reduction in the risk of developing cancer and a 46% reduction in the risk of dying from chronic liver disease. Drinking four or more cups a day would bring these figures to 41% and 71%, respectively, according to the researchers.

The method

To arrive at this conclusion, they studied data on liver cancers registered in 194 countries in 2016. In that year, 1,240,201 deaths from liver cancer were recorded among people over 15 years of age. The researchers then retrieved statistics on coffee consumption. They added the two sets of data into a model that showed links between coffee consumption and liver cancer reduction.

The model showed that if everyone drank two cups of coffee a day in 2016, there would have been 452,861 fewer deaths from liver cancer. And if everyone drank four cups, there would have been 723,287 fewer.

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