Enjoy This Kind Of Tea, For Up To 11% Reduction In Heart Disease Risk

Tea is generally considered a very healthful drink, and rightly so.

Most of the benefits come from its polyphenol content, for example: Are You Getting The Right Kinds Of Flavonoids?

…not that flavonoids are the only kinds of polyphenols at hand as per: 21 Most Beneficial Polyphenols & What Foods Have Them ← see for example the phenolic acids, too

So, what’s this about tea and heart health?

A hearty cup of tea might do you some good

Researchers (Dr. Zichen Ye et al.) followed 485,934 adults (in the research sense, not the stalking sense) for an average of 9 years, recording 14,863 new cases of vascular disease, including cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, pulmonary heart, and peripheral artery disease, in the context of tea-drinking habits.

In fewest words: habitual tea drinking was associated with an 11% lower risk of vascular disease compared with not drinking tea.

In terms of quantity, among people drinking tea at least weekly, the lowest estimated vascular disease risk was associated with approximately six to eight cups daily, although the relationship was non-linear and did not establish that higher consumption necessarily directly prevents disease.

As for type, black tea showed more consistent associations with reduced vascular disease risk than green tea, so that’s worth bearing in mind too.

This is likely for the reasons we described in: Black Tea or Green Tea – Which is Healthier?

However! Drinking tea described as “burning hot” was associated with a 16% higher vascular disease risk, although the researchers didn’t establish a specific harmful temperature or determine the biological mechanism.

On which note, you might also want to bear in mind: Green Tea Can Benefit You (But Watch Out!)

Finally, the researchers also noted that tea-drinking is for most people a healthy thing as part of a healthy lifestyle, and is not a panacea nor can it reasonably be considered in a vacuum, as we have many factors affecting our health every day. In this case, the combination of habitual tea consumption, not smoking, and high physical activity was associated with the lowest vascular disease risk, corresponding to a 45.2% lower risk.

Or, as the researchers summed it up:

❝Habitual tea consumption was associated with lower VD risk, with associations varying by drinking characteristics and intake level. Tea consumption combined with non-smoking and high PA was associated with the lowest risk. These findings support considering multidimensional tea-drinking and lifestyle patterns in vascular health research.❞

Lest “multidimensional tea-drinking” sound more exciting than it is, this refers to the patterns of tea-drinking as plotted across multiple dimensions statistically, e.g. an axis for frequency of tea-drinking, an axis for quantity of tea-drinking, an axis for strength of the tea in question, and so on. Those (and more) are the dimensions.

You can read this paper in full, here: Habitual tea consumption is associated with lower cardiovascular disease risk

Want to learn more?

For more benefits than just heart health, check out:

Black, White, Green, Or Red: Which Tea Is Best, By Science?

And for the other kinds of teas, you might also want to consider:

What Teas To Drink Before Bed (By Science!)

Enjoy!