Green tea shown to prolong life
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-13 07:38
A study of more than 40,000 men and women in Japan has found that those who
drink a lot of green tea live longer, researchers said on Tuesday.
The investigation by Dr. Shinichi Kuriyama and colleagues at the Tohoku
University School of Public Policy, Sendai, Japan, found the beverage was
particularly effective in fighting heart disease but did not reduce the death
rate due to cancer, as some earlier animal studies had suggested.
Polyphenols -- plant compounds known to be antioxidants -- found in green tea
may explain the life prolonging benefit it confers, said the study published in
this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.
The 11-year study was conducted in northeastern Japan, a region where 80
percent of the population drinks green tea and more than half drink three or
more cups daily.
Those involved in the study ranged in age from 40 to 79 and had no history of
stroke, heart disease or cancer when the study began in 1994.
Those who drank five or more cups of green tea a day had a death rate overall
and from heart disease in particular that was 16 percent lower than those who
drank less than one cup daily, over the course of 11 years.
Over the first seven years of the study the death rate of the heavy tea
drinkers was 26 percent lower.
Where heart disease was concerned the effect was stronger among women than
men in the study, perhaps because men were more likely to be cigarette smokers,
the authors reported.
Tea of all kinds is the most consumed beverage in the world aside from water,
while heart disease and cancer are the two leading causes of death worldwide.
The authors said the apparent protective effect found was not likely to be
the result of tea drinkers in the study somehow being more health conscious,
since almost all Japanese consume green tea as one of their favorite beverages
regardless of their other health habits.
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