Coffee bean extracts rich and poor in kahweol both give rise to elevation of liver enzymes in healthy volunteers

Nutrition Journal

Martijn B Katan¹  Evert G Schouten¹  Mark V Boekschoten¹ 

[1] Division of Human Nutrition, Wageningen University, The Netherlands

关键词: aspartate aminotransferase;    alanine aminotransferase;    liver enzymes;    kahweol;    cafestol;    coffee oil;   

Others  :  1151931
DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2891-3-7

 received in 2004-04-27, accepted in 2004-07-15,  发布年份 2004

【 摘 要 】

Background

Coffee oil potently raises serum cholesterol levels in humans. The diterpenes cafestol and kahweol are responsible for this elevation. Coffee oil also causes elevation of liver enzyme levels in serum. It has been suggested that cafestol is mainly responsible for the effect on serum cholesterol levels and that kahweol is mainly responsible for the effect on liver enzyme levels. The objective of this study was to investigate whether coffee oil that only contains a minute amount of kahweol indeed does not cause elevation of liver enzyme levels.

Methods

The response of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALAT) and aspartate aminotransferase (ASAT) to Robusta coffee oil (62 mg/day cafestol, 1.6 mg/day kahweol) was measured in 18 healthy volunteers.

Results

After nine days one subject was taken off Robusta oil treatment due to an ALAT level of 3.6 times the upper limit of normal (ULN). Another two subjects stopped treatment due to other reasons. After 16 days another two subjects were taken off Robusta oil treatment. One of those subjects had levels of 5.8 ULN for ALAT and 2.0 ULN for ASAT; the other subject had an ALAT level of 12.4 ULN and an ASAT level of 4.7 ULN. It was then decided to terminate the study. The median response of subjects to Robusta oil after 16 days was 0.27 ULN (n = 15, 25^th,75^th percentile: 0.09;0.53) for ALAT and 0.06 ULN (25^th,75^th percentile -0.06;0.22) for ASAT.

Conclusions

We conclude that the effect on liver enzyme levels of coffee oil containing hardly any kahweol is similar to that of coffee oil containing high amounts of kahweol. Therefore it is unlikely that kahweol is the component of coffee oil that is responsible for the effect. Furthermore, we conclude that otherwise unexplained elevation of liver enzyme levels observed in patients might be caused by a switch from consumption of filtered coffee to unfiltered coffee.

【 授权许可】

   
2004 Boekschoten et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.

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