Attention coffee lovers! That habit may not be so bad. Drinking coffee, a lots of it, may help prevent type 2 diabetes, a disease affecting millions and on the rise across the globe, according to a new study published in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. It’s the caffine, say scientists from Nagoya University in Japan. The scientists fed either water or coffee to a group of lab mice, a common stand-in for people in such studies. The coffee consumption prevented development of high-blood sugar and improved insulin sensitivity in the mice. That mean lower risk of diabetes.

There were also other benefits from drinking coffee, including improvements in fatty liver, which is a disorder where fat builds up in liver cells, primarily in obese people. That further reduces the risk of diabetes, the scientists said.

Other studies in the lab showed that caffeine may be “one of the most effective anti-diabetic compounds in coffee,” according to the scientists.

Keep sipping, there’s more study to come. Baltimoresun.