Study backs coffee as protective against diabetes

By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO, (Reuters) - A study done in Finland, the heaviest coffee drinking country, provides more evidence that the world's most widely consumed beverage may ward off adult onset diabetes, researchers said on Tuesday.

Women there who drank three to four cups of coffee daily had a 29 percent reduced risk for the disease. Among men, the same amount lowered the risk by 27 percent.

The apparent protective effect, the mechanism of which remains a mystery, increased with consumption. Women who downed 10 or more cups a day had nearly an 80 percent lowered risk, while men who drank the same cut their risk by 55 percent.

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