Study makes major prediction for tea drinkers

Britons who say they drink at least two cups of tea per day tend to live longer than those who don’t, a study of the national health database has revealed.

Scientists analyzed nearly 500,000 people aged between 40 and 68 who are included in the UK Biobank, a database meant to help explore possible links between various medical conditions and genetic or environmental factors affecting patients. The paper, which was published in the medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine on Tuesday, sought to discover whether there was any correlation between tea-drinking habits and mortality.

After poring over a decade’s worth of data, the researchers found that “higher tea intake was modestly associated with lower all-cause mortality risk among those who drank two or more cups per day.” The trend was similar regardless of whether participants drank coffee or how well their genes allowed them to metabolize caffeine, the report said.

The study does not imply causation, only correlation, and did not account for factors not reflected in the database, such as the size of the cups consumed. But the results do indicate that the beverage can be part of a healthy diet, the authors, who work at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda in the US, said.

The report is significant because the health benefits of tea had mostly been studied in Asia, where green tea is more popular than black tea, which is predominant in Europe, including the UK.