A prospective cohort study found that drinking black tea may be associated with a moderately lower risk of mortality. The risk was lowest among people who drank two or more cups of tea a day. The findings are published in Annals of Internal Medicine .
Tea is one of the most consumed drinks worldwide. Previous research has suggested an association between tea consumption and a lower risk of mortality in populations where green tea is the most common type of tea. In contrast, studies published in populations where black tea consumption is more common are limited to inconsistent results.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health conducted a study to evaluate the associations of tea consumption with all-cause and cause-specific mortality using data from the United Kingdom Biobank, where black tea consumption is common. They also tested whether associations differ based on the use of common tea additives (milk and sugar), tea temperature, and genetic variants that affect the rate at which people metabolize caffeine.
The UK Biobank includes data on half a million men and women, aged 40 to 69, who completed a baseline questionnaire between 2006 and 2010. Of these, 85 percent reported drinking tea regularly and of those, 89 percent reported drinking black tea.
Relative to non-tea drinkers , participants who reported drinking 2 or more cups a day had a 9 to 13 percent lower risk of mortality. The associations were observed regardless of whether participants also drank coffee, added milk or sugar to their tea, their preferred tea temperature, or genetic variants related to caffeine metabolism. According to the authors, their findings suggest that tea, even at higher levels of intake, can be part of a healthy diet .
