Tea drinking may be good for your heart, researchers in China have concluded.<\/p>\n
A new observational study looking at drinking tea and the risk of vascular disease (VD) in 485,934 people in the country found an 11% reduced risk among regular tea-drinkers.<\/p>\n
However, experts in the UK noted the findings, but said far more work was needed before any recommendations could be made on the optimal dose of tea.<\/p>\n
VD can include heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, pulmonary heart disease and peripheral artery disease.<\/p>\n
In the study, during a typical follow-up of nine years, there were 14,863 cases of VD among the group.<\/p>\n
The findings suggested moderate-strength tea was associated with lower risk, while “burning hot” tea may be associated with higher VD risk.<\/p>\n
The lowest estimated risk was approximately six to eight cups per day among weekly tea drinkers (who typically had 2.78 cups per day).<\/p>\n
Furthermore, tea consumption combined with not smoking and exercising was associated with the lowest risk.<\/p>\n
Dell Stanford, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, said: “People who regularly drank tea in this study had around an 11% lower relative risk of vascular disease, adding to evidence linking tea drinking with better cardiovascular health.<\/p>\n
“But this doesn’t prove that a daily cuppa protects your heart. This was an observational study and other differences in people’s diets and lifestyles could help explain the findings.<\/p>\n
“Although the lowest estimated risk was seen at around six to eight cups a day, we shouldn’t treat that as a recommended amount.<\/p>\n
“Tea intake was only measured once, cup size wasn’t standardised and the study cannot prove that drinking more tea caused the lower risk.<\/p>\n
“Importantly, the findings point to the wider role of healthy lifestyle habits. The lowest risk was seen among people who drank tea, did not smoke and were physically active.<\/p>\n
“There’s no single food or drink that will transform our heart health; our overall diet and lifestyle matter much more.<\/p>\n
“Finally, because this research was carried out in China, we need further evidence before assuming the findings apply in the same way to people in the UK.”<\/p>\n
The study was published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tea drinking may be good for your heart, researchers in China have concluded. A new observational study looking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60],"class_list":["post-661226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}