Tea We’ve heard about the benefits of green tea, black tea, and coffee, but we’ve also read reports that say you shouldn’t overdo it. The latest study, from the University Medical Center Utrecht, in the Netherlands, reveals that both high and moderate consumption of tea and coffee help to reduce your risk of heart disease without increasing your risk of death from other causes. Previous studies have shown benefits for the heart but they did not assess whether or not other health risks, such as those from stroke, increased.
The researchers asked nearly 40,000 study participants fill out a questionnaire to evaluate how much tea and coffee they drank. The questionnaire did not require respondents to define what type of tea they drank, but black tea is the most common hot beverage for the Dutch, with only around 5% drinking green tea. For the following 13 years, they kept a check on whether the participants suffered with cardiovascular disease or death.
According to Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association, what the researchers found was that drinking more than six cups of tea each day was linked with a 36% lower risk of heart disease, when compared to people who drank less than one cup each day. And those who drank three to six cups each day fared even better – they saw a 45% reduced risk of death from heart disease. Neither group showed any increased risk of stroke or other health issues relating to the heart.
If you don’t drink tea or coffee, don’t panic. Although the researchers aren’t certain, they believe the heart-healthy benefit of both tea and coffee to be flavonoids. Many foods also contain these antioxidants – onions, garlic, cabbage, cranberries, kidney beans and asparagus are just a few of the fruits and vegetables containing them.
First published June 25, 2010