Got liver problems? Drink a couple cups of coffee -- or three or even four.

A new study by an international team of scientists has concluded the caffeine intake from drinking multiple cups of coffee a day helps ward off and even heal the effects of liver disease.

Led by two doctors from the Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School, along with the Duke University, the researchers discovered ingesting an elevated daily level of caffeine, which would equal up to four cups of coffee a day, appears to help reduce fatty liver in people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a condition suffered worldwide, according to a university news release.

About 70 percent of all people diagnosed with diabetes and obesity have NAFLD, the researchers said.

It's estimated 30 percent of American adults currently suffer from NAFLD, and its incidence rate is also rising in other regions of the world, including Singapore.

The study notes that so far there have been no other effective treatments for the condition found, except for diet and exercise.

But, using cell culture and mouse models, the authors of the study, Paul Yen, a medical doctor and associate professor, and research fellow Rohit Sinha, both from the Duke-NUS Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders Program in Singapore, discovered caffeine stimulated the metabolization of lipids stored in liver cells and decreased the fatty liver of mice fed a high fat diet.

Consequently, the findings suggested that greater-than-typical coffee and tea consumption (equivalent to the caffeine intake of four cups a day) may prove beneficial in the prevention and protection against the progression of human NAFLD.

"This is the first detailed study of the mechanism for caffeine action on lipids in liver and the results are very interesting," said Yen in the news release. "Coffee and tea are so commonly consumed and the notion that they may be therapeutic, especially since they have a reputation for being 'bad' for health, is especially enlightening."

The findings will be published in the September issue of the journal Hepatology.

The team hopes their new research will lead to the development of caffeine-like drugs that don't have the usual side effects related to ingesting caffeine, but maintain the therapeutic effects on the liver.

It would serve as a starting point for studies on the full benefits of caffeine and related therapeutics in humans.