Tea Drinking Linked to Lower Mortality Rates
More great news for tea lovers!
Recent results from a study by the National Institute of Health suggests that drinking tea may be associated with a lower risk of mortality.
Using data from the UK biobank, with findings published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the study sourced input from over 498,000 men and women aged 40 to 69 years, between 2006 and 2010.
During the follow-up of 11.2 years, the results indicated that higher tea intake was associated with lower mortality risk among those who drank two or more cups per day, with all leading causes of death accounted for, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, ischemic heart disease, stroke and respiratory disease.
The Study
The effects of tea on health have long been studied, with numerous studies focusing specifically on green tea. The effects of black tea, however, are perhaps less explored, so it is particularly interesting to see these published results from the National Institute of Health; 89% of those studied who regularly drink tea said that they drank the black variety.
The data compared those who consumed two or more cups of tea each day against those who drank no tea, with results indicating between a 9% and 13% lower risk of mortality amongst the tea drinkers. Whether the tea drinkers added milk or sugar to their tea was not seen to have any noticeable effect on the results, nor did the preferred temperature of the tea.
"a substantial advance in the field"
Fernando Rodriguez Artalejo, a professor of preventive medicine at the Autonomous University of Madrid, said that the research represented “a substantial advance in the field”, citing that most previous studies had focused on green tea and were “small in size and inconclusive in their results”. Artalejo went on to say that the “article shows that regular consumption of black tea…is associated with a modest reduction in total and, especially, cardiovascular disease mortality over 10 years".
All this comes as very welcome news to us tea-lovers, with findings suggesting that regular tea consumption can be encouraged as part of a healthy diet!
Tea-Direct has previously looked into the myriad health benefits that drinkers may experience from drinking tea, which has helped us create our handy Teas for Health sections.