And scientists at Nagoya University say it’s the caffeine. (Note, this is a finding in mice, not humans.)
Take that Andrew Weil!
Weil is the bearded supplements guru, who is for just about anything, until he’s against it (after the science catches up with him). Ditto for the reverse: He has railed against the evils of coffee and black pepper, for example, based on scant evidence that either is bad for you.
Indeed, the evidence is mounting that coffee is an excellent tonic.
Results of the study:
Effects of Coffee Ingestion on Blood Glucose Concentration and Lipid Metabolism in KK-Ay Mice (Experiment 1)
In experiment 1, 4-week-old KK-Ay mice ingested coffee or water as their drinking water for 5 weeks. The body weight, food intake, and tissue weights are shown in Table 1. The final body weight did not differ between the control and coffee groups. The food intake (on days 11−13 and 25−27) was also not different between these two groups. Coffee ingestion reduced subcutaneous or retroperitoneal fat tissue weight, but did not affect epididymal or mesenteric fat tissue or interscapular BAT weights. The liver weight in the coffee group was significantly lower than that in the control group. As shown in Figure 1A, the blood glucose concentration in the control group gradually increased during the course of the experiment, reaching a maximum of 30.2 ± 1.5 mmol/L. After the second week, the blood glucose concentrations in the coffee groups were significantly lower than the respective values in the control group. Finally, blood glucose concentration in the coffee group (19.6 ± 1.7 mM) exhibited a 30% decrease compared with that in the control group (28.1 ± 1.5 mM) (Figure 1A).