Study says drinking tea could cut heart disease risk
Researchers have found that regularly drinking tea has the effect of lowering blood pressure. They have even suggested that heart disease rates could be reduced by around 10% if everyone consumed frequent cups of tea.
The results of a study, conducted by the University of Western Australia, have been recently published in the Archives of Internal Medicine journal. A group of 95 men and women, all aged between 35 and 75, were given three cups of powdered black tea solids each day for six months, or a flavour-matched non-tea “placebo” drink.
Each tea contained 429 milligrams of polyphenols, plant chemicals that are said to have health benefits. Whilst the participants had normal to high blood pressure readings at the start of the study, after a period of six months their blood pressure levels had reduced by between 2 and 3 millimetres of mercury.
The researchers estimate that in the general population, this could translate in a 10% reduction in high blood pressure prevalence, and a 7% to 10% reduction in the risk of heart disease. However, it is worth noting that a regular cup of black leaf tea contains up to 150mg of polyphenols, so the total dose consumed by the volunteers was actually equivalent to 8.58 cups of tea a day. Therefore achieving this sort of reduction would require everyone to sip eight cups of black tea a day.
Nevertheless, the leader of the research team, Dr Jonathan Hodgson, wrote: “Our study has demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge that long-term regular consumption of black tea can result in significantly lower blood pressures in individuals with normal to high-normal range blood pressures. At a population level, the observed differences in blood pressure would be associated with a 10% reduction in the prevalence of hypertension 0- high blood pressure – and a 7% to 10% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease.
In response to these findings, Tracy Parker, dietician at the British Heart Foundation, said: “It is important to understand that a [cup of tea] won’t cancel out a poor diet or lifestyle. There is evidence that antioxidant properties in tea could provide heart health benefits but more research is required to better understand how tea may reduce blood pressure. In the meantime, cutting down on salt and alcohol, eating more fruit and vegetables and keeping physically active are all well-established ways of lowering your blood pressure.”
Source – Mirror, 28 Jan 12
