Drinking too much? Coffee can (probably) help protect your liver
A new study suggests that drinking coffee, eating fish and doing exercise ‘probably’ protect you from liver cancer.
Researchers from the World Cancer Research Fund looked at studies involving 8.2million people also found that drinking three alcoholic drinks is more likely to give you the disease.
Director of World Cancer Research Fund UK, Amanda McLean, said: ‘Around three or more drinks per day can be enough to cause liver cancer.
‘Until now we were uncertain about the amount of alcohol likely to lead to liver cancer. But the research reviewed in this report is strong enough, for the first time, to be more specific about this.’
It’s not just alcohol that causes liver disease, however. Being overweight or obese and food contaminated by aflatoxins – toxins produced by certain fungi – also showed ‘strong evidence’ of causing the disease.
Such foods include cereals, spices, peanuts, pistachios, Brazil nuts, chillies, black pepper, dried fruit and figs.
The report, described as the most comprehensive review to date of global research into the relationship between diet, weight, physical activity and liver cancer, said women should try to limit their alcohol intake to one drink per day and men to two drinks a day.
Other recommendations included being as lean as possible without becoming underweight and carrying out physical activity for at least 30 minutes every day.
Liver cancer is one of the most deadly cancers with just a 12% survival rate after five years.
Around 4,700 people are diagnosed every year in the UK but nearly a quarter of cases diagnosed in the UK could be prevented if people kept a healthy weight and did not drink, the charity said.
