Applied nutritional investigationHabitual coffee consumption inversely associated with metabolic syndrome-related biomarkers involving adiponectin
Introduction
Metabolic syndrome (MetS), a cluster of multiple cardiovascular risk factors including visceral obesity, dyslipidimia, hypertension, and glucose intolerance and/or insulin resistance, has become a major public health problem worldwide [1], [2]. In Japan, despite the relatively lower frequency of obesity compared with Western countries, the prevalence of MetS has been increasing markedly. According to the recent publication in Japan, an estimated 10.7 million people suffered from MetS and another 9.4 million were estimated to be at risk in 2006 [3]. MetS is strongly associated with the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD), coronary heart disease (CHD), and diabetes mellitus [4], [5], and has been found to be related to colon and breast cancers [6], [7]. Thus, finding preventive measures for this syndrome is a matter of great importance.
In addition to improving lifestyles (i.e., increasing physical exercise and/or reducing caloric intake), specific diets have been found effective at reducing the risk for diabetes mellitus, CVD, and MetS [8], [9], [10]. Recently, emerging epidemiologic evidence has suggested inverse associations between coffee consumption and the risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus, CHD, and some types of cancer [11], [12], [13]. More recently, a large prospective study has shown that coffee consumption was inversely associated with total and cause-specific mortality [14]. Despite numerous studies conducted on these diseases, studies with healthy participants on MetS-related biomarkers have been relatively few, including our recent study [15], [16], [17]. Thus, it is very important to investigate whether or not habitual coffee consumption is beneficial in this regard.
In this contribution, we investigate the association of habitual coffee consumption with MetS-related biomarkers among healthy men. Although several definitions for MetS have been published by different international organizations, the definitions are largely similar. The basic components are central obesity, raised systolic or diastolic blood pressure (SBP or DBP), reduced high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and raised triglycerides and fasting plasma glucose (FPG) [18]. In the present study, we have used hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) as a substitute for FPG, because it does not require fasting and has been reported to be more sensitive and useful for diagnostic criteria for prediabetes and diabetes [19]. We measured the visceral fat area (VFA) and subcutaneous fat area (SFA) by computed tomography (CT), using VFA and the VFA/SFA ratio as indicators of central obesity. Furthermore, in the view of extensive evidence showing the important role of adipokines in MetS and related diseases [20], we measured the serum adiponectin levels in low-, medium- and high-molecular-weight forms as an anti-inflammatory biomarker.
To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the associations of habitual coffee consumption with MetS-related biomarkers together with VFA, SFA, and the serum levels of each form of adiponectin.
Section snippets
Participants
Before recruiting participants, the study design was approved by the ethical committee for analytical research on the human genome of Wakayama Medical University (Approval No. 44). In 2006, 731 Japanese were recruited from a workplace in Wakayama for this study with informed consent (33% participation rate). These participants also were asked whether they would participate for the genotyping study in addition to this study. After eliminating those who had taken medications for hypertension,
Results
Characteristics of participants with coffee consumption and MetS-related biomarkers are summarized in Table 1. In the ANCOVA analyses, both light and moderate coffee consumption showed significant associations with lower VFA and VFA/SFA, and also with HbA1c level. Other MetS-related biomarkers such as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and hs-CRP showed no associations. Moderate coffee consumption showed the highest adiponectin levels compared with no and light coffee consumption; however,
Discussion
In the present study, we found that habitual coffee consumption was significantly associated with lower VFAs and the VFA/SFA ratios, but not with SFA. In overall analyses, moderate coffee consumption showed favorable associations with MetS-related biomarkers including serum adiponectin levels, especially with T-Ad and HMW-Ad levels in subjects with ≤1 MetS risk factors. To our knowledge, this is the first report that has revealed the associations between coffee consumption and MetS risk factors
Conclusion
Habitual moderate coffee consumption shows significant inverse associations with MetS-related biomarkers possibly involving adiponectin, which is inversely related to visceral fat accumulation.
Acknowledgments
A Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research was received from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (17590524 and 21590658).
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K. Mure and T.T. designed research and analyzed data. S.M., C.M., K. Mugitani, M.I., F.K., and O.M. conducted anthropometric measurements and computed tomography scans for visceral fat area and subcutaneous fat area. K. Mure drafted and K. Mure and T.T. revised the manuscript; T.T. is the corresponding author. All authors approved the final version of manuscript.