Experts have finally solved the long-standing mystery of coffee’s beneficial effects against Type 2 diabetes. Previous studies found that coffee drinkers are at a lower risk for developing Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 90-95 percent of diabetes cases in the world. Those studies said that people who drink four or more cups of coffee daily have a 50 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes.

And every additional cup of coffee brings another decrease in risk of almost 7 percent.

Also scientists have implicated the misfolding of a substance called human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP) in causing Type 2 diabetes, and some are seeking ways to block that process.

Ling Zheng, Kun Huang and colleagues decided to see if coffee’s beneficial effects might be due to substances that block hIAPP.

And they indeed identified two categories of compounds in coffee that significantly inhibited hIAPP.

They suggest that this effect explains why coffee drinkers show a lower risk for developing diabetes.

“A beneficial effect may thus be expected for a regular coffee drinker,” the researchers conclude,” the researchers concluded.

The finding was reported in a report in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.