Your morning coffee might hold more than just a caffeine kick. A new lab study has uncovered six never-before-identified compounds in roasted Coffea arabica beans that show potential for helping control blood sugar, a key factor in preventing and managing type 2 diabetes.
Researchers from the Kunming Institute of Botany at the Chinese Academy of Sciences focused on a group of plant chemicals called diterpenes. Some of these natural compounds are already known for their health benefits, but finding new ones, especially in complex foods like coffee, can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
To speed things up, the team used an innovative three-step method that combined advanced chemistry tools with targeted activity testing. This allowed them to zero in on the most promising molecules quickly, without using large amounts of solvents.
The result: three abundant compounds, named caffaldehydes A, B and C, plus three rarer relatives, all capable of blocking an enzyme called α-glucosidase. This enzyme helps break down carbohydrates into glucose, so slowing it down can reduce the post-meal blood sugar spike. In lab tests, the new compounds were even more potent at enzyme inhibition than the diabetes drug acarbose, though researchers stress these results are early and don’t yet show how the compounds behave in people.
“This research opens the door to developing new functional food ingredients or nutraceuticals derived from coffee,” the authors wrote. The same screening strategy could also be used to find beneficial compounds in other foods, potentially accelerating discoveries in nutrition science.
For now, experts say it’s too soon to recommend upping your coffee intake for blood sugar control. But the findings add another layer to coffee’s complex chemistry and hint at new ways your daily brew might someday play a role in metabolic health.
This study, published in Beverage Plant Research, was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Yunnan Province research initiatives, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and local coffee industry science programs.