Coffee and fitness - Coffee suppresses lipopolysaccharide-induced liver injury in rats

To clarify the relationship between coffee and fitness, we investigated the effect of coffee on weight gain and total cholesterol as well as productio n of cytokine's and activities of GOT (aspartate aminotransferase; EC 2.6.1 .1.) and GPT (alanine aminotransferase; EC 2.6.1.2.) as injected lipopolysa ccharides. Forty-eight male Wistar rats were divided into three dietary gro ups (n=16), which were fed a stock diet (control group), the diet supplemen ted with freeze-dried coffee of 6.2 g/kg (0.62% coffee group), and the diet supplemented with freeze-dried coffee of 13.6 g/kg (1.36% coffee group). I t was confirmed by HPLC analysis that the serum caffeine concentrations in both coffee groups became significantly higher in 140 days after the start of feeding. No significant differences in body weight and serum cholesterol were found between the coffee groups and control group, though the coffee groups tended to be somewhat high at cholesterol level. Activities of serum COT and GPT increased at 2 h after LPS injection, but in the coffee groups were significantly suppressed (p<0.05). However, the coffee feeding could not suppress the increases of serum cytokine (TNF-<alpha> and IL-6) levels. These results suggest that coffee may serve as a preventive against liver injury.