• The current study is based on an experiment where 47 participants were given 0-8 cups of coffee per day and their blood was analyzed.
  • Coffee and marijuana affect the body in areas where their effects overlap.

What does coffee have to do with cannabis? According to a new study, your morning cup will cause a drop in some of the substances that are associated with the bodys system to respond to marijuana.

The amounts of these metabolite substances that occur in the endocannabinoid system have decreased in people who drink 4 to 8 cups of coffee a day daily, according to a study published on March 15, 2018 in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

Endocannabinoids jare molecules that bind to cannabinoid receptors that are found throughout the nervous system, as well as in the immune and endocrine tissues. The body does its own endocannabinoids, but it also responds to foreign cannabinoids, such as those found in leaves of the Cannabis genus.

Coffee potheals endocannabinoid chemicals that increase marijuana smoking, said Marilyn Cornelis, a preventive medicine assistant at Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, who conducted new research.

That would beoretically, it could mean that coffee can produce opposite effects to cannabis on the endocannabinoid system, Cornelis told Live Science.

Coffee in the blood

Research has recorded feelings and behaviorthat induces coffee, compared to cannabis, based on the rise and fall in blood chemicals after consuming coffee. Endocannabinoids were just one group of chemicals - or metabolites, where researchers found some change.

Coffee the mixture changed 115 different metabolites in the blood. 34 of these metabolites have neither the name nor the known role in the body. Another 82 known metabolites play a role in 33 different biological processes.

Cornelisovand her team focused on 5 of these specific biological processes, where numerous metabolites seemed to cluster. Two ways were expected: One was xanthine metabolism - a set of processes that contain caffeine metabolism, making sense because the body naturally metabolizes caffeine in coffee after it is consumed. The second way, the metabolism of benzoate, which is involved in the breakdown of other compounds in coffee called polyphenols. Compounds are decomposed by microbes that live in the intestine, says Cornelis.

We have increased control of the intestinal microbefor his role in health, so finding it interesting, she said.

But the real surprises were three other metabolic processes that were never associated with coffee. Endocannabinoids have been grouped together in one of these processes.

"It,what we see here is that the systems affected by coffee and cannabis overlap ", Cornelis said..

Although the nature of these interactions is not yet clear. Typically, endocannabinoids that have declined with coffee also fall when the body is under stress. That the amount of coffee that the participants drank (4-8 cups a day) caused stress, leading to a decrease in endocannabinoid levels as a protective measure.

Cornelisand her team also found that consuming coffee increases the concentration of steroid metabolites in the blood, perhaps because coffee contains plant steroids called phytosterols. "Especially the metabolites that increase are associated with steroid excretion, so it is possible that coffee may increase the steroid breakdown in the body.

What this finding means forhuman health remains a mystery. Some steroid processes are linked to certain cancers, Cornelis says, and the connection between coffee and cancer itself is blurred, so steroid detection could provide a new space for understanding whether the consumption of coffee affects the likelihood of a person getting cancer.

"Metabola final groupingThe changes in consumption of coffee consisted of acylcholino fatty acids which can be associated with the endocannabinoid route. But the changes are the most mysterious of all. Its a new set of metabolites that we cant really explain, "Cornelis added.

Coffee and health

The fact that the study raises more questions than answers is no surprise. Cornelis went to research to find new links between coffee and health. "A lot of research is related to coffee drinking and health effects - so much so that magazine headlines like " Coffee for You Good / Coffeeis bad for you "isu almost cliché.

"But its just statistical data. The goal of my research is to understand the causal reasons that trigger coffee with these results."

The current study is based on a one-year-old clinical trial conducted in Finland, where 47 people who regularly drank coffee were asked to drink 4 cups a day for the next month and consumed 8 cups a day for the next month.

Everyone attending Arabica, which is also the most popular type of coffee in the United States. Cornelis and her team used the blood of these participants to test 733 metabolites.

Same peopleThey have also been tested for changes in their lipid and protein levels, which Cornelis continues to study. He also hopes to use more data from large population studies that contain coffee consumption data to see if the same metabolites are changing in the wider population.

"It would be interesting to eatwhether genetic differences play a role in the coffee response, ”she said.