Long term tea drinking and mortality

Prospective cohort study to evaluate the associations of tea consumption with all-cause and cause-specific mortality and potential effect modification by genetic variation in caffeine metabolism (1)

• 498043 men and women aged 40 to 69 years who completed the baseline touchscreen questionnaire from 2006 to 2010
• self-reported tea intake and mortality from all causes and leading causes of death, including cancer, all cardiovascular disease (CVD), ischemic heart disease, stroke, and respiratory disease
• study results:
  • during a median follow-up of 11.2 years, higher tea intake was modestly associated with lower all-cause mortality risk among those who drank 2 or more cups per day
    • relative to no tea drinking, the hazard ratios (95% CIs) for participants drinking 1 or fewer, 2 to 3, 4 to 5, 6 to 7, 8 to 9, and 10 or more cups per day were 0.95 (95% CI, 0.91 to 1.00), 0.87 (CI, 0.84 to 0.91), 0.88 (CI, 0.84 to 0.91), 0.88 (CI, 0.84 to 0.92), 0.91 (CI, 0.86 to 0.97), and 0.89 (CI, 0.84 to 0.95), respectively
    • inverse associations were seen for mortality from all CVD, ischemic heart disease, and stroke
    • findings were similar regardless of whether participants also drank coffee or not or of genetic score for caffeine metabolism
  • limitation of study results
    • potentially important aspects of tea intake (for example, portion size and tea strength) were not assessed
• study authors concluded that:
  • higher tea intake was associated with lower mortality risk among those drinking 2 or more cups per day, regardless of genetic variation in caffeine metabolism
  • these findings suggest that tea, even at higher levels of intake, can be part of a healthy diet

Reference:

• Inoue-Choi M et al.Tea Consumption and All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality in the UK Biobank : A Prospective Cohort Study. Ann Intern Med. 2022 Aug 30. doi: 10.7326/M22-0041.