Drinking coffee might protect against the progressive liver damage that results from excess drinking and alcoholism. According to Kaiser Permanente researchers, consuming coffee seems to offer a protective benefit against alcoholic cirrhosis, and the more coffee a person consumes the less risk they seem to have of dying from alcoholic cirrhosis.

Cirrhosis of the liver has been known to lead to the development of liver cancer in about five percent of the patients with liver cirrhosis. While these study findings do reflect a protective factor for the liver from drinking coffee, the researchers are not sure what it is in coffee that offers the benefit.
Here's the breakdown of coffee consumption to protective benefit for the liver. People drinking one cup of coffee a day were 20 percent less likely to have alcoholic cirrhosis. People drinking two or three cups were 40 percent less likely to have alcoholic cirrhosis. For people who drank four or more cups of coffee a day, there was an 80 percent reduction in risk.

They conclude it is not caffeine, because tea drinkers did not receive the same liver disease protective benefit as coffee drinkers. The researchers also state they do not recommend coffee as an effective remedy for long-term liver damage that can come from too much drinking or alcoholism. Never-the-less, the study does show coffee confers a health benefit when it comes to the liver.