Coffee's Effect On Diabetes Tested
Can excessive coffee-drinking aggravate the diabetic state?This question is being asked by four Philadelphia investigators after recent studies of the effects of caffeine on both diabetic and nondiabetic subjects. They stress that answers await much further study.The studies indicate, however, that blood sugar levels are significantly elevated in maturity-onset diabetics when two cups of coffee are added to a glucose tolerance test meal."Coffee had just the opposite effect in young, healthy non-diabetic adults," Herschel Sandberg, MD, told the Ninth Multidiscipline Research Forum. Dr. Sandberg is part of a four-man team at Philadelphia General Hospital headed by Samuel Bellet, MD, Director of the Division of Cardiology. Other members are Oscar A. P. DeCastro, MD, and Leonard J. Feinberg, PhD, formerly of the hospital, now director of Alpha Medical Laboratories, Levittown, Pa.For the past four years, the group has been engaged in