Findings may provide insight into mechanisms behind coffee’s health effects
FRIDAY, March 30, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Metabolomic profiling highlights potential mechanisms to explain coffee’s health effects, according to a study published online March 15 in the Journal of Internal Medicine.
Marilyn C. Cornelis, Ph.D., from Northwestern University in Chicago, and colleagues conducted nontargeted metabolomic profiling among 47 habitual coffee consumers following three phases: refraining from drinking coffee for one month, consuming four cups of coffee/day in the second month, and drinking eight cups/day in the third month.
The researchers identified 115 metabolites that were significantly associated with coffee intake (P < 0.05). Eighty-two were previously known and mapped to one of 33 predefined biological pathways. However, there was significant enrichment of metabolite members of five pathways (P < 0.05), including xanthine metabolism (caffeine metabolites), benzoate metabolism (reflects polyphenol metabolite products of gut microbiota metabolism), steroid (may reflect phytosterol content of coffee), fatty acid metabolism (acylcholine, a novel link to coffee), and endocannabinoid (also a novel link to coffee).
“The novel metabolites and candidate pathways we have identified may provide new insight into the mechanisms by which coffee may be exerting its health effects,” the authors write.
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