Can drinking a cup of coffee be an effective way to protect yourself from getting the Corona virus? What has not yet been proven in practice is at least plausible from the point of view of chemical and biochemical research. Fittingly, a research team from Jacobs University Bremen came to this conclusion.
The team led by chemists Nikolai Kuhnert, Dorothea Schmidt and Nicholas Ohl managed to show experimentally – that is, in the laboratory – that the chemical compound 5-caffeoylquinic acid (common name chlorogenic acid), which occurs in coffee, the interaction between the SARS CoV – 2 spike protein of the corona virus and the ACE-2 receptor, the anchor point of the virus in the human cell.
More studies needed
A regular cup of filter coffee – in the laboratory that’s exactly 200 milliliters – contains about 100 milligrams of 5-caffeoylquinic acid. Laboratory experiments have shown that 5-caffeoylquinic acid at this concentration is high enough to inhibit the spike protein docking into the ACE-2 receptor – and therefore also the infection process. More studies are needed to prove this process in practice and, therefore, for our daily lives.
More studies are also needed to determine how long the inhibitory effect of 5-caffeoylquinic acid lasts. “As chemists, we cannot practically answer whether drinking coffee can actually serve as a preventive measure to protect against infections. But we can say that it is plausible,” said Kuhnert. “It is well proven that coffee also has other positive effects”, says the chemist. For example, regular coffee drinkers are less likely to suffer from type II diabetes, and the scientific evidence for this is very good.
In a next step, the findings on the interaction between coffee and the corona virus will now be passed on to psychology and social science researchers: “Epidemiological studies can be used to determine whether regular coffee drinkers are more or less infected with crown”. , according to Kuhnert. The connection and possible effects on Long Covid are also taken into account.