The caffeine in coffee can provide targeted benefits for people with lupus. The coffee plant has many nutrients and compounds that can help benefit you, including:
- Antioxidants
- Anti-mutagens
- Fat molecules
- Caffeine
The caffeine in coffee can help you feel energized, focused, open up your breathing passages, and promote weight loss and better cognitive function.
However, coffee can affect everyone differently. For some, coffee may cause an upset stomach and heartburn. If you’re taking prednisone, a common corticosteroid for lupus, you could be putting your body at even more risk for osteoporosis. Caffeine can also negatively impact your sleep which can make dealing with fatigue from lupus more challenging.
The impact of coffee and caffeine on lupus is discussed below.
1. Regulates Inflammatory Response
Coffee can help release anti-inflammatory proteins and regulate your inflammatory response by suppressing antibody production. Studies have shown that having a daily caffeine intake between 154 mg to 377 mg can help lower the prevalence of:
- Lupus nephritis
- Neuropsychiatric involvement
- Hematological manifestations
- Lower blood levels of pro-inflammatory proteins
Having coffee daily has been shown to reduce lupus disease activity in your body. This happens because caffeine lowers the inflammatory cytokine levels. Studies done outside the body have also looked at caffeine as a treatment to lower the rate of key inflammation-related genes in the cells in your body.
2. Building Your Immune System
In studies, caffeine seems to interact with different parts of your immune system. This can cause innate and adaptive responses when consumed. A study on the impact of caffeine on Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) shows that caffeine could impact lupus disease activity in your body.
Another study showed that drinking more coffee was positively associated with six months of clinical remission from lupus. However, these studies and SLE's impact depend on a specific caffeine dose and are likely not included with sugar and cream as most people take their coffee.
3. Reduced Risk of Cardiovascular Disease
One study showed that Colombian patients with SLE had a reduced risk of early age-at-onset and cardiovascular disease. This was in addition to the six-month lupus remission. The reduced risk was associated with the daily consumption of coffee. Non-coffee drinkers did not show the same benefits. However, this is just one study, and more needs to be done to determine the correlation between lupus patients who drink coffee and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.
Overall, coffee seems to be beneficial for reducing lupus disease activity. This could be good news for people who already drink coffee. But if you’re not a typical coffee drinker, the effects of the coffee may be more harmful than the benefits you get from it. You should monitor how coffee makes you feel.
Talk to your doctor before increasing your caffeine consumption. If you're looking for the benefits of caffeine without the side effects of coffee, you could talk to your doctor about caffeine pills. They'll be able to tell you if the pills interact with any other lupus medication you may be taking.
