A cup of Joe for your health
May 30, 2007
By LEE BOWMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
People joke about their coffee tasting like battery acid. But some newly published research suggests drinking coffee can help reduce unhealthy levels of uric acid in the bloodstream.
Uric acid is a natural waste product from the breakdown of foods containing purines, and normally is regularly flushed out through the kidneys. But some people either produce excessive amounts of uric acid or don't eliminate it efficiently.
High uric acid levels can contribute to a variety of health problems, from the arthritic disease gout to increased insulin resistance and risk of dementia and heart disease.
Gout occurs after excessive levels of uric acid for months and years leaves deposits of crystals in the joints.
Dr. Hyon Choi of the University of British Columbia and Brigham and Women's Hospital and colleagues looked at two groups -- 14,000 adult men and women who were part of a national health and nutrition survey between 1988 and 1994, and a group of 45,000 men 40 and older who were studied over 12 years starting in 1986.
Results from both groups, published in the journals Arthritis and Rheumatism and Arthritis Care and Research, showed that levels of uric acid in the blood significantly decreased as coffee intake increased, but not so with tea consumption. And the effect was even seen among those who drank decaffeinated coffee, suggesting that some component of coffee besides caffeine impacts uric acid.
Specifically in the men's study, the risk for developing gout was 40 percent lower for those drinking 4 or 5 cups of coffee a day, and 59 percent lower for those downing 6 or more cups a day compared to those who never drank coffee.
The researchers also point out several mechanisms by which coffee helps to decrease insulin levels and improve insulin sensitivity.
But scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston have an even more direct approach in mind for fighting diabetes. They report in the June issue of the journal Cell Proliferation that they'd been able to engineer adult stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood to produce insulin.
"This discovery tells us that we have the potential to produce insulin from adult stem cells to help people with diabetes,'' said Dr. Randall Urban, senior author and a professor of internal medicine. However, he stressed that this is still just basic research: "It doesn't' prove that we're going to be able to do this in people. It's just the first step up the rung of the ladder."
The theory is that doctors would eventually be able to extract stem cells from an individual's blood, then grow them in a lab in large numbers and program them to become the cellular masses that produce insulin -- called islets of Langerhans -- or other types of cells, even whole organs.
Over at Florida State University, scientists under stem cell researcher Teng Ma have started using a unique bioreactor he designed to research ways of generating bone cells that could be transplanted to human patients.
The four-year project is being funded by the Department of Defense, which hopes for new therapies for troops who have suffered bone loss from disease or wounds, but Ma says the results will have findings for all sorts of patients with bone disease, including osteoporosis.
The initial work involves getting stem cells to produce perfect copies of themselves, which then can be directed to produce a specialized cell for bone or nerves.
Those bone cells would then be combined with an artificial material to create tissue similar in structure and density to that of real bone.
Such an approach would avoid the rejection problem of using grafts from donors, and the limited supply of bone that can be moved from one part of a patient's body to another.
Still, "we're not going to see artificially created bone tissue being transplanted into human products by this time next year,'' Ma said. "We have a great deal more research to do and regulatory hurdles to overcome before this is ready for medical use."
On the Net: http://www.rheumatology.org
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