Drinking coffee, tea or both may be associated with a significantly lower risk of stroke and dementia, according to research published yesterday in the peer-reviewed journal Plos Medicine.
Researchers from Tianjin Medical University in Tianjin, China, discovered the association after observing more than 365,000 participants from the UK Biobank. The research participants were all between the ages of 50 and 74, recruited for the study between 2006 and 2010 and observed until 2020.
During the study period, 5,079 of the participants developed dementia, and 10,053 participants developed stroke, with people who reported regular consumption of coffee and/or tea experiencing lower incidences of both.
According to the researchers, people who drank two to three cups of coffee per day or three to five cups of tea per day fared better than non coffee or tea drinkers in avoiding stroke or dementia. Coffee and tea drinkers also fared better in terms of fending off post-stroke dementia.
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Notably, the study found that the population with the lowest incidence of stroke, dementia and post-stroke dementia were people who regularly consumed both coffee and tea. People who reported drinking four to six cups total of coffee and tea were 32% less likely to suffer a stroke and 28% less likely to suffer from dementia.
The new study adds to a wealth of emerging and sometimes contradictory research related to coffee consumption that draws data from the UK Biobank, a large-scale biobank in the UK that has enlisted half a million participants for observation since 2006.
A 2018 study involving UK Biobank participants suggested regular coffee consumption fends of death from any cause. Earlier this year alone, separate research projects involving the hundreds of thousands of participants from the Biobank found that coffee consumption can reduce chronic liver disease, prevent cardiac arrhythmias or improve long-term heart health.
Notably in relation to yesterday’s study, a study published this past September found that heavy coffee drinkers may actually have an elevated risk of developing dementia.
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