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Originally Posted by Evermont  Here's why: Caffeine is metabolized by the polymorphic cytochrome P450 1A2 (CYP1A2) enzyme. Individuals who are homozygous for the CYP1A2*1A allele are "rapid" caffeine metabolizers, whereas carriers of the variant CYP1A2*1F are "slow" caffeine metabolizers. This genetic trait was discovered a couple years ago. Turns out that roughly half of all people have it one way, and half the other. This is the main reason for all the conflicting studies in the past regarding the effects of caffeine and coffee's goodness or badness. Some newer caffeine studies now take this into account, sadly others still don't.
The variable is not in the coffee or the caffeine - it's in the coffee drinkers genes!
As it turns out coffee has many hundreds of other potentially relevant compounds most of which have not yet been studied at all.
This kind of discovery will lead to the rise of nutrigenomics, a promising new scientific field that will provide individualized answers to tricky nutrition related questions. |
This is interesting to know. Recently over the last several months i started drinking coffee on a regular basis in the morning during my commute. I kept getting high blood sugars after i arrived at work and my bolus insulin didn't really seem to have any effect. I finally realized it was the caffeine in the coffee i was drinking. So, i decided to stop drinking coffee since i'm not yet a serious coffee drinker i figured i should nip it in the bud before its too hard to give up. I must be homozygous for CYP1A2*1A.
