According to a study, you tend to be healthier if you eat at least three times a week drinking tea. One type of tea has a particularly positive effect, which is more evident in men than in women.
Content: Drinking tea is healthy
Drinking tea: why is it healthy?
“Regular tea consumption is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and various causes of death,” explains lead author of the study Dr. Xinyan Wang from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing told Science Focus magazine. The research into the health benefits of drinking tea was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology in 2020.
Over a period of seven years, the researchers examined more than 100,000 people in China. Her medical history did not include heart attacks, strokes or cancer.
The subjects were divided into two groups: regular tea drinkers, who drank tea at least three times a week, and irregular tea drinkers, who consumed the hot drink less.
The result: test subjects who drank tea regularly had significant health benefits:
- They were 20 percent less likely to develop incident heart disease and stroke.
- They were 22 percent less likely to die from a heart attack or stroke.
- The overall death rate was 15 percent lower.
The study also showed health benefits in people who used it regularly green tea drank were significantly higher than those who consumed black tea.
| What is green tea? “Green tea or green tea is a variant of making tea. In contrast to black tea, the leaves are not fermented (oxidized), which is why the leaves of Chinese tea are preferred for the production of green tea, as they are smaller and more delicate than those of Assam tea,” says Lebensmittellexikon. |
The advantages are particularly evident in men
The benefits of drinking tea regularly seem to be particularly evident in men. “We found that the protective effect of regular tea consumption was very pronounced and consistent across the range of outcomes in men, but only modest in women,” explains study author Dr. Dongfeng Gu told CNN.
This could be because the tea drinkers were predominantly male: 48 percent of the men in the study were regular tea drinkers, compared to 20 percent of the women. Chinese women are also more likely to drink herbal tea made from rosebuds and lotus leaves, according to Dr. Dongfeng Gu.
| How much tea is drunk in Germany? – Around 129 million cups of tea are drunk every day, that’s 47 billion a year – 68 liters of black, green, herbal and fruit tea are drunk per capita (as of 2019) (via Food Magazine) |
Drinking tea: habits differ
According to the study, the positive effects of the hot drink on health are particularly evident in green tea and in people who drink tea regularly over a long period of time.
However, Dr. Dongfeng Gu noted that tea drinking habits differ from country to country. Therefore, the results may not apply to the western world, where black tea, for example, is more popular and is often drunk with milk and sugar.
“Tea consumption is part of a cultural heritage and its health effects could be influenced by other eating and drinking habits, for example consumption of other flavonoid-rich foods or beverages such as coffee,” said the study author.
By the way: That’s why you should drink coffee without milk.
Sources: Science Focus magazine, Study: Tea consumption and the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality: The China-PAR project (European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, August 2020), CNN, Lebensmittelmagazin, Lebensmittellexikon