Tea and coffee. Proponents of coffee claim that it not only gives you a boost of energy, but also has a number of positive effects on the body, which are confirmed by many studies.
For example, coffee slows down the aging of the brain, promotes weight loss and even reduces the risk of death from various diseases.
But one of the biggest studies recently carried out by researchers at the University of Galway showed that in reality it is not so simple – coffee can significantly increase the risk of death. But tea, on the contrary, can improve health.
Tea and coffee, why coffee turned out to be more harmful than tea?
We already said that according to some studies, several cups of coffee a day reduce the risk of death from various diseases.
This is due not only to the caffeine content of coffee, but also to some other beneficial substances.
However, according to the results of a recent study, drinking 4 cups of coffee a day increases the risk of stroke.
And we are not talking about a few percent. The risk increases by more than a third. I agree, this is a significant enough result to give up coffee.
For their research, the authors attracted almost 27 thousand people from 27 different countries in Europe, Asia, South America, etc.
As a result, representatives of different ethnic groups with different cardiovascular disease risk profiles were involved in the work.
Among them were more than 13 thousand people who suffered a stroke for the first time in their life.
Reduces the risk of stroke.
According to the authors of the paper, tea has the opposite effect, that is, it reduces the risk of stroke. For example, drinking three to four cups of black tea a day can reduce this risk by 29%.
Green tea is not far behind black tea and reduces this indicator by 27%. By the way, some studies have also previously shown that black tea is slightly healthier than green tea.
However, to get a positive effect, the tea should be drunk without any additives.
In particular, milk can reduce or even completely block the beneficial properties of antioxidants in this drink.
Therefore, scientists did not find a beneficial effect of tea for those who drank it with milk.
In addition, the authors found some geographic differences. The biggest gains from tea consumption were in China and South America.
But in South Asia, tea consumption increased the risk of stroke.
Unfortunately, the study doesn’t say anything about whether this difference is due to tea consumption habits, the tea itself, or some other factor.
Maybe in some countries it is customary to add a lot of sugar to tea, while in others it is drunk without any additives.
What other drinks increase the risk of death from stroke?
In their work, the authors compared not only the benefits and harms of coffee and tea, but also paid attention to other drinks, namely sweet sodas and fruit juices.
The results turned out to be quite predictable, since carbonated drinks have long been called “liquid death”. A vivid example of this is Mexico, where people are dying en masse from Coca-Cola.
A study found that they increase the risk of stroke by 22%. This indicator increases rapidly if you drink carbonated drinks several times a day.
The association between fizzy drink consumption and stroke was particularly strong in Eastern and Central Europe, the Middle East, Africa and South America.
But most interestingly, the risk of stroke is even greater when drinking fruit juices – this indicator increases to 37%. If you drink fruit juices several times a day, the risk of stroke triples. Women are most at risk.
However, the reason is probably not that the fruit juices themselves are harmful. It’s just that most store-bought juices are made with preservatives.
They contain a large amount of sugar and other substances, as a result of which, instead of the benefits provided by fresh fruits, a person receives serious harm from juices.
How to reduce the risk of stroke?
Drinking black tea isn’t the only way to reduce your risk of stroke. The results of the study showed that plain water helps with this.
However, you should drink at least 7 cups a day.
At least this reduces the risk of a stroke caused by a blood clot.
Of course, there are other factors that increase the likelihood of a stroke.
For example, they include the sedentary lifestyle we talked about earlier.
In addition, strokes can be caused by bad habits, such as smoking or the intentional consumption of alcoholic beverages.
Good Day!
