Insulin is a pancreas gland hormone that helps regulate your blood glucose levels by sending chemical signals to your liver and other cells throughout your body. If you regularly drink a lot of coffee, it can desensitize your body to insulin's normal effects. To compensate for this desensitization, called insulin resistance, your pancreas will produce more insulin.
The Basics
Your blood glucose levels are linked to your consumption of foods that contain carbohydrates. When you eat these foods, your body breaks them down during digestion into small sugar molecules so they can pass through the wall of your small intestine into your bloodstream. Glucose is the primary type of sugar that passes into your blood. In response to rising glucose levels, your pancreas releases insulin into your bloodstream, where it "tells" your cells to take in glucose as an energy source and tells your liver to store a glucose reserve.
Understanding Insulin Resistance
Insulin resistance occurs when the cells in your liver, muscles and fatty tissue don't respond properly to insulin's chemical signals and take in less glucose than normal for a given amount of insulin in the bloodstream. To maintain their blood glucose levels, people with insulin resistance need to produce more insulin, and the pancreas will do what it can to meet higher insulin demands. If resistance stays high, however, insulin requirements in the bloodstream can outstrip the pancreas' maximum insulin production capacity.
Higher Insulin Levels
According to a study published in December 2004 in "Diabetes Care," when compared to people who do not drink coffee, people who regularly drink more than 5 cups of coffee per day have significantly higher insulin levels on a diagnostic test called a fasting insulin test. The authors of the study note that caffeine consumption can produce sharp short-term drops in insulin sensitivity and state that insulin resistance is also probably the cause of increased insulin levels in habitual coffee drinkers. In the study, people who consumed caffeine at lower levels had smaller increases in their insulin levels.
Reduced Diabetes Risks
In most circumstances, doctors consider insulin resistance to be a major risk factor for the eventual onset of the glucose control disorder called Type 2 diabetes. However, the authors of the study published in "Diabetes Care" and the authors of a scientific review published in December 2008 in "Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism" note that coffee consumption appears to significantly reduce Type 2 diabetes risks. This holds true for drinkers of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, and the authors of the review in "Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism" report that, apart from its caffeine content, coffee contains significant amounts of antioxidants and may also have other properties that account for its potential diabetes-related benefits. Consult your doctor for more information on the relationship between coffee and insulin.
References
- Colorado State University Extension; Physiologic Effects of Insulin; R. Bowen
- "Diabetes Care"; Effects of Coffee Consumption on Fasting Blood Glucose and Insulin Concentrations; R. van Dam, et al.; December 2004
- National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse; Insulin Resistance and Pre-Diabetes; October 2008
- "Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism"; Coffee, Glucose Homeostatis and Insulin Resistance; Physiological Mechanisms and Mediators; J. Tunnicliffe, et al.; December 2008
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