Great News For Tea Drinkers
You may already be lengthening your lifespan!
Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book. -Bill Watterson
If you want your spouse to live longer, you might want to make them a nice big cup of tea.
According to a new study in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a regular tea habit might be just the ticket to a longer, healthier life.
If you ask Dr. Xinyan Wang of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, she’ll tell you that not only are tea drinkers found to have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease but of all causes of death as well. And she should know, she was one of the study’s first authors.
The study included 100,902 people with no history of heart attack, stroke, or cancer divided into two groups: frequent tea drinkers (three or more times a week) and never or occasional tea drinkers (less than three times a week) and followed-up for an average of 7.3 years.
Tea drinkers who maintained their habit had a lower risk of heart disease incidents and stroke (39%), fatal heart disease with stroke(56%), and experienced a decreased risk of all-causes of death (29%) compared to never or non-regular tea drinkers.
Regular tea drinking was associated not only with longer life expectancy but with better health during those years. The average number of extended years was 1.26.
Just imagine all the living you could do in a year and a quarter!
Here’s a list of things that people have done in a year according to an article on WiseBread by Ashley Marcin :
- Run or walk across the US.
- Sail the world.
- Pay off debt.
- Raise millions for charity.
- Plant a forest.
- Conquer your fear.
- Read 300 books.
But you have to keep it up.
The reason for this might be because the main bioactive compounds in tea, called polyphenols, aren’t stored for long periods in the body, so if you want the effects, you need to drink it regularly over a long time.
Before you tea lovers get too excited, it was also shown that the tea that had the best effect was green tea for a couple of reasons.
Green tea which is processed differently than black tea is high in the polyphenols that protect against risk factors such as high blood pressure and dyslipidemia.
Black tea is fully fermented, which oxidizes polyphenols, possibly causing them to lose their antioxidant effects. Also, (and this is the kicker for me) black tea is often served with milk, which research has shown may counteract its beneficial effects.
Gender-specific analyses also showed different outcomes, with men having much better results than women.
Dr. Wang supposed one reason might be that women already had a much lower rate of heart disease and stroke with a lower death rate from both. As the study is ongoing, they’ll be expecting more comprehensive results for women over time.
While doctors are confident enough to recommend lifestyle and dietary guidelines from the study, there are some caveats.
If you drink black tea with loads of milk and sugar, if you like to have a smoke with your tea or drink it as a hangover cure, this study might not make too much difference for you.
However, if you love green tea, drink it regularly, and have a relatively healthy lifestyle, keep up the excellent work! Drinking green tea every day might be a great addition to your health routine and give you extra time to enjoy with your loved ones.
Thanks so much for reading!
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