Green tea 'gives long life'
Green tea could help prevent fatal diseases
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Wednesday, 13, Sep 2006 08:10
A group of Japanese scientists have established that drinking large amounts of green tea can significantly lengthen people's lives.
Publishing their study in the Journal of the American Medical Association periodical, researchers from Tohoku University analysed mortality rates in the north-eastern region of Japan, where four out of every five people drink green tea, over half of them drinking three or more cups every day.
By comparing how long people lived over an 11-year period with how much tea they drank, the researchers found that drinking five cups a day of green tea can reduce mortality by 16 per cent compared with those who drank just one cup a day.
The effect was even more pronounced when analysing the link between tea-drinking and deaths caused by cardiovascular diseases - an enormous 26 per cent lower over a seven-year follow-up period.
But, almost equally strikingly, there was next to no relationship between tea-drinking and deaths from cancer.
The article cited sources claiming that three billion kilograms of tea are produced every single year to placate the world's thirsty population.