Green tea linked to longer life

A Chinese study has found that drinking green tea at least three times a week can lead to a longer life.

The same association, which also sees lower rates of heart disease and stroke was not seen in black tea.

The study was done from a data analysed from over 100,000 participants followed over an average of seven years and classified as those who consumed the beverage three times a week.

The study found that habitual tea drinkers lived on average around 15 months longer than those who didn’t.

Explains Dongfeng Gu, senior author on the new study from the Chinese Academy of General Sciences:

The protective effects of tea were most pronounced among the consistent habitual tea drinking group. Mechanism studies have suggested that the main bioactive compounds in tea, namely polyphenols, are not stored in the body long-term. Thus, frequent tea intake over an extended period may be necessary for the cardioprotective effect.

In contrast, Black tea, contains lower volumes of beneficial polyphenols known to be associated with health benefits, plus it is also often consumed with milk, which can counteract any potential health effects.

The composition of tea drinkers was 49% preferring green tea and only 8% on black tea. Gu says that the small proportion of black tea drinkers made it difficult to observe robust associations but there was a strong hint as to expectations.

The new study was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology