Brief (coffeeyo.com): Tea and coffee are two of the world’s most-consumed beverages — and beyond keeping you awake, they may genuinely be “life-extending.” A Sichuan University-West China study found that drinking about three cups of tea (or 6–8 g of leaves) a day shows the clearest anti-aging effect, while research in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology links 0.5–3 cups of coffee a day with a 12% lower all-cause mortality. Combined moderate intake of both can lower death risk by 22%.
Original by Swagpp, MedSci
Tea and coffee are two of the most widely consumed beverages in the world —
Tea is the world’s second-most-consumed drink after water, with about 3 billion people around the globe enjoying it — roughly one in three people. As for how much people love coffee? Statistics from the top journal Science show the world consumes about 2.25 billion cups of coffee every day; lined up, those cups could circle the Earth 7.5 times!
Tea, containing caffeine, catechin polyphenols and flavonoids, has neuroprotective effects, offering antioxidant stress, anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic benefits. Coffee contains caffeine too, and is also a rich source of antioxidants and bioactive compounds. Compared with milk tea, juice, sugary drinks and the like, these two healthy beverages naturally become the public’s top choices.
For office workers, coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon really is about “keeping going.” But have you ever thought that, while perking you up, coffee and tea might truly be extending your life!
Sichuan University-West China’s latest research:
Drinking 3 cups of tea, or 6–8 g of tea leaves, a day
shows the most pronounced anti-aging effect
Tea contains various bioactive substances, among which the most-watched is undoubtedly “tea polyphenols.” Previous studies have shown that tea polyphenols have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-apoptotic and epigenetic-modulation effects, thereby delaying aging. Meanwhile, animal experiments show that the flavonoid polyphenols rich in tea can extend the lifespans of worms, fruit flies and mice.
So, do people who drink more tea live longer?
Recently, a research team from the West China School of Public Health at Sichuan University found that moderate tea drinking can delay the growth of human biological age. Among the findings, drinking about three cups of tea a day, or 6–8 g of leaves, shows especially clear anti-aging benefits. The study was published in The Lancet Regional Health — Western Pacific.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanwpc.2023.100955
The researchers recruited 7,931 and 5,998 participants respectively from the China Multi-Ethnic Cohort (CMEC) study and the UK Biobank longitudinal cohort, and estimated their biological age (BA) using composite biomarkers and the Klemera Doubal Method (KDM).
What is the concept of KDM-BA acceleration? A multivariable-adjusted model showed that each one-year increase in KDM-BA acceleration raises the risk of death by 56%. Moreover, KDM-BA acceleration performs well in predicting most aging-related diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and frailty.
This survey covered many tea types, including green, scented, dark, sweet, black, oolong, yellow and white tea. Based on different tea-drinking frequencies, participants were divided into currently non-drinking, 1–2 days/week, 3–5 days/week, and almost daily; daily intake was calculated using 200 ml as one standard cup.
A novel point is that, when Chinese people drink tea, the leaves are usually loose rather than bagged. So, when collecting data, the researchers specifically measured the amount of tea leaves (in grams).
Research flowchart
Across the whole cohort, participants who kept drinking tea had a slower rate of aging.
Specifically, compared with those who never drank tea, participants who switched from never drinking to drinking, as well as those who kept the habit, showed a slower increase in KDM-BA acceleration — simply put, they “aged more slowly.”
In the CMEC cohort, participants who switched from never drinking to drinking had lower KDM-BA acceleration than those without the habit (β = −0.319, 95% CI: −0.620 to −0.017 years).
Conversely, compared with those who always had the habit, participants who switched from drinking to not drinking showed a greater increase in KDM-BA acceleration — that is, they aged faster.
From the collected baseline information, participants who kept drinking tea were mostly male, more likely to drink alcohol, and maintained healthier eating habits. In addition, these participants had lower rates of insomnia, depression and anxiety symptoms, especially in the CMEC cohort.
Baseline information of participants
To draw more practically useful conclusions, the researchers assessed the prospective exposure-response relationship between tea drinking and biological age. Restricted cubic splines showed that as daily tea intake increased, the curve of KDM-BA acceleration kept falling, flattening out at about 3 cups/day.
In other words, compared with non-drinkers, participants who drank 2–3 cups of tea a day had the lowest KDM-BA acceleration. When tea-leaf amount was used as the CMEC exposure measure, drinking 6–8 g of leaves a day showed the strongest correlation — the lowest aging rate at that point.
Association between tea consumption and KDM-BA acceleration
In summary, there is a close link between tea drinking and a reduced rate of biological aging measured by KDM-BA — the dose-response relationship indicates that drinking 3 cups of tea or 6–8 g of leaves a day maximizes the anti-aging benefit.
The first study to thoughtfully spell out the grams of tea leaves one should drink per day! Why not drink up?!
Drinking 0.5–3 cups of coffee a day
lowers all-cause mortality by 12%
but instant coffee really won’t do…
The benefits of coffee need no elaboration. Beyond perking you up, regular coffee drinking helps lower the risk of cancer and type 2 diabetes, control weight, ease depression, and prevent Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s; moreover, recent studies show coffee can also lower death risk, thereby extending lifespan!
A study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology noted: drinking 0.5–3 cups of coffee a day is associated with a 12% lower all-cause mortality and a 17% lower cardiovascular mortality. Compared with non-drinkers, coffee lovers had better cardiovascular health; but the benefits came only from decaffeinated and ground coffee, and had nothing to do with instant coffee…
doi:10.1093/eurjpc/zwac008
The study recruited 468,629 volunteers from the UK Biobank, none of whom had any history of cardiovascular disease; average age was 56.2 ± 8.1 years, 44.2% were male, and average follow-up was 11 (10–12) years.
Among nearly 470,000 volunteers, 22.1% had no habit of drinking coffee, 58.4% drank an average of 0.5–3 cups a day, and 19.5% drank more than 3 cups a day on average.
Multivariable Cox proportional-hazards regression showed that, compared with non-drinkers, those who drank 0.5–3 cups a day had a 12% lower all-cause death risk, a 17% lower cardiovascular death risk, and a 21% lower stroke risk.
However, those who drank more than 3 cups a day showed no significant improvement in these aspects compared with non-drinkers. In other words, although regular coffee drinking is healthy, more is not always better — 0.5–3 cups a day is the optimal “life-extending” dose.
Association between coffee intake and death risk
Next came the highlight of this study — the researchers specifically distinguished the health effects of different types of coffee.
Among all coffee drinkers, 19.5% habitually drank decaffeinated coffee, 23.3% drank ground coffee, and 55.1% drank instant coffee. After adjusting for possible confounding factors, the researchers found that, compared with non-drinkers:
Those who drank 0.5–3 cups of decaf a day had a 16% lower all-cause death risk (P=0.001);
More than 3 cups of decaf a day lowered all-cause death risk by 17% (P=0.022);
0.5–3 cups of ground coffee a day lowered all-cause death risk by 25% and cardiovascular death risk by 25%;
Even more striking, more than 3 cups of ground coffee a day was associated with a 49% lower cardiovascular death risk (P=0.008)!
Compared with non-drinkers, volunteers who drank decaf or ground coffee showed improvements in multiple cardiac-function parameters. Regrettably, the researchers found no evidence that long-term instant-coffee drinking improves cardiovascular health.
The reason different types of coffee affect health differently may lie in their different processing and chemical compositions. For example, although decaf contains no caffeine, drinking it still helps improve cardiovascular health and lower death risk, indicating that coffee components other than caffeine are also beneficial.
In summary, this study confirms that 0.5–3 cups of coffee a day helps improve cardiovascular health and lower both cardiovascular and all-cause death risk. If you can, choose decaffeinated or ground coffee!
Coffee + tea, effect doubled
Drink enough of this amount
death risk drops by 22%
For most people, drinking tea or coffee is not an either-or but both. So what sparks fly when tea and coffee are drunk together?
Scholars from Tianjin Medical University answered this long-puzzling question, finding that moderate daily intake of both coffee and tea lowers death risk. Compared with those who drink neither, drinking 2–4 cups of tea and a moderate amount of coffee daily was associated with the lowest combined mortality.
(Image source: BMC Medicine)
This study used longitudinal cohort data from nearly 500,000 people in the UK Biobank, analyzing the associations of drinking coffee and tea alone or in combination with total mortality and cause-specific mortality (including cardiovascular, respiratory and digestive diseases).
First, the researchers investigated the association of drinking only coffee or only tea with mortality. Surprisingly, drinking only coffee or only tea showed a non-linear relationship with mortality. Drinking only coffee showed a J-shaped association with all-cause, cardiovascular and respiratory mortality, while drinking only tea showed an inverted-J-shaped association with all-cause and cardiovascular mortality; drinking only coffee or only tea consistently showed an inverted-J-shaped association with digestive-disease mortality.
Specifically, drinking 1 cup of coffee or 3 cups of tea a day carried the lowest all-cause death risk, while about 5 cups of coffee or 6 cups of tea a day carried the lowest digestive-disease death risk.
*A quick Google check told the editor that in the UK 1 cup = 250 mL.
Association curves between coffee or tea drinking and all-cause and cause-specific mortality
(Image source: BMC Medicine)
Next, the authors further quantified the magnitude of the relationship between coffee and tea intake and mortality. Participants were grouped by coffee intake (none, <1–2, 3–4 and ≥5 cups/day) and tea intake (none, <1, 2–4 and ≥5 cups/day), and their all-cause and cause-specific mortality were tallied.
The analysis showed that, compared with participants in the same group at different intake levels, drinking 2–4 cups of tea or a moderate amount of coffee daily was linked to the lowest all-cause mortality.
All-cause mortality from coffee or tea drinking (Image source: BMC Medicine)
Great — it seems the benefits of coffee or tea are once again confirmed, and can actually lower mortality! Coffee and tea lovers are quite pleased. Moreover, the researchers humanely considered “East-meets-West” enthusiasts and analyzed the combined drinking of coffee and tea.
So, do coffee and tea together mean “happy takeoff” or “full of harm”?
Surprisingly, the results showed a significant interaction between combined coffee-and-tea drinking and all-cause mortality. For those who drank a little coffee a day, the increase in all-cause mortality rose with increasing tea intake, while for those who drank a lot of coffee a day, the relationship was U-shaped. But for those who drank tea daily, regardless of the amount of tea, increasing coffee intake was U-shaped related to all-cause mortality.
Combined coffee and tea drinking with all-cause and cause-specific mortality
(Image source: BMC Medicine)
Thus the researchers reached a data conclusion delightful enough to make office workers “double-happy”: compared with those who drink neither coffee nor tea, drinking both in moderation daily was associated with a 22% lower all-cause death risk.
So, on a warm winter day, will you choose the poetic tea or the stylish coffee? Why not drink both!
Reference material:
Writing | Swagpp
Edit | Swagpp
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Original title: “Coffee + Tea Extends Life! Sichuan University-West China Latest: Drinking 3 Cups of Tea a Day Gives the Best Anti-Aging Effect! Drinking Both Lowers Death Risk by 22%”
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanwpc.2023.100955
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