New Delhi. Among its complex effects on the body, coffee has been linked to lower insulin and uric acid levels on a short-term basis or cross-sectionally, said   Dr KK Aggarwal, President Heart Care Foundation of India.

Researchers at the Arthritis Research Centre of Canada, University of British Columbia in Canada, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard School of Public Health in Boston conducted a prospective study on 45,869 men over age 40 with no history of gout at baseline. Over 12 years of follow-up data published in June 2007 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism show that drinking 4 or more cups of coffee a day dramatically reduces the risk of gout for men.The risk of gout was 40 percent lower for men who drank 4 to 5 cups a day and 59 percent lower for men who drank 6 or more cups a day than for men who never drank coffee. 

There was also a modest inverse association with decaffeinated coffee consumption.Components of coffee other than caffeine may be responsible for the beverage’s gout-prevention benefits. Among the possibilities, coffee contains the phenol chlorogenic acid, a strong antioxidant.The findings are most directly generalizable to men age 40 years and older, the most gout-prevalent population, with no history of gout.