LONDON: People who drink coffee and smoke cigarettes may be at a lower risk of developing a rare liver disease, a new study has claimed.
Both coffee consumption and cigarette smoking are shown to potentially protect against primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), researchers said.
PSC is a chronic liver disease caused by chronic inflammation of the bile ducts, they said.
The cross-sectional study, conducted by researchers at the Norwegian PSC Research Center based at Oslo University Hospital and the University of Oslo, used a questionnaire about environmental exposures, and included 240 PSC patients and 245 controls.
The study showed that the PSC patients had lower coffee consumption both currently and in the early adulthood, suggesting that coffee consumption could protect against the development of the disease.
PSC patients who drank coffee, however, had lower levels of liver enzymes in the blood, thus suggesting a beneficial effect in the liver.
Regarding cigarette smoking, only 20 per cent of the patients reported ever daily cigarette smoking, compared with 43 per cent of the healthy controls.
In addition, cigarette smokers acquired the disease on average 10 years later than non-smokers. Taken together, these observations confirm and strengthen previous observations of smoking as a possible protective factor in PSC.
While PSC is not a common disease, it is a severe condition affecting mostly young adults (30-40 years), and with a high risk of associated cancer of the bile ducts. -PTI
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