Tea and coffee drinkers have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a large body of evidence shows.
And the protection may not be down to caffeine since decaf coffee has the greatest effect, say researchers in Archives of Internal Medicine.
They looked at 18 separate studies involving nearly 500,000 people.
This analysis revealed that people who drink three or four cups of coffee or tea a day cut their risk by a fifth or more, say researchers.
The same amount of decaffeinated coffee had an even bigger effect, lowering risk by a third.
Type 2 diabetes usually starts after the age of 40 and develops when the body can still make some insulin, but not enough, or when the insulin that is produced does not work properly. Type 2 diabetes is treated with a healthy diet and increased physical activity. In addition to this, medication and/or insulin is often required.
Dr Victoria King, of Diabetes UK, said: “Without full information about what other factors may be influencing the type 2 diabetes risk of the studies’ participants – such as their physical activity levels and diet – as well as what the active ingredient in tea or coffee appears to be, we cannot be sure what, if anything, this observed effect is down to.
“What we can be sure of is that the development of type 2 diabetes is strongly linked to lifestyle, which means that many cases could be prevented by keeping active and eating a healthy balanced diet that is low in fat, salt and sugar with plenty of fruit and vegetables.”
DRINKING coffee may reduce a man’s risk of developing aggressive prostate cancer, research suggests.
The study found that men who drank the most coffee had a 60 per cent lower risk of aggressive prostate cancer than those who drank no coffee.
Scientists recorded the coffee consumption of almost 50,000 men taking part in a major US health study.
Over a period of 20 years, 4,975 of the men developed prostate cancer.
Aggressive prostate cancers, known as “tigers”, are far more likely to prove lethal than milder forms of the disease.
Study leader Dr Kathryn Wilson, from Harvard Medical School in Boston, US, said: “Coffee has effects on insulin and glucose metabolism as well as sex hormone levels, all of which play a role in prostate cancer. It was plausible that there may be an association between coffee and prostate cancer.
“Very few lifestyle factors have been consistently associated with prostate cancer risk, especially with risk of aggressive disease, so it would be very exciting if this association is confirmed in other studies. Our results do suggest there is no reason to stop drinking coffee out of any concern about prostate cancer.”
Components in coffee other than caffeine were thought to be responsible for the findings. Coffee contains many biologically active compounds including antioxidants and minerals, said the scientists.
The results were presented today at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting “Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research” in Houston, Texas.
Helen Rippon, head of research management at The Prostate Cancer Charity, said: “Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world and so it is important that we fully understand any impact drinking it has on health.
“The research evidence so far on the relationship between caffeinated drinks and prostate cancer has been quite mixed, and has largely focused on the risk of developing the disease and the role that drinks like tea and coffee might have in cancer prevention.
“This large scale study looked instead at whether coffee drinking might influence the aggressiveness of prostate cancer in men who do develop the disease. This research does provide a clue that coffee drinking might reduce the likelihood of a man being diagnosed with a more advanced prostate cancer, although there is still more research to do to confirm this and to uncover which component of coffee could be responsible.
“We would not recommend that men cultivate a heavy coffee drinking habit on the back of this research, not least because a high caffeine intake can cause other health problems. However, men who already enjoy a regular cup of coffee should be reassured that they do not need to give this up for the sake of their prostate.”
Each year around 35,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in the UK and 10,000 die from the disease.
Herbal medicines marketed as weight loss aids have been found to include a drug withdrawn in Europe and US on safety grounds.
Analysis of Payouji tea and Pai You Guo Slim capsules by the UK medicines watchdog revealed they contained diet drug sibutramine.
It was taken off the market in January 2010 over fears it increased the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Anyone taking the drug was urged to stop and consult their doctor.
Sibutramine was first approved as an anti-obesity drug in 1997, but data from recent studies suggests a higher rate of heart attacks and strokes among people taking it.
While it was withdrawn in Europe in January, it was only withdrawn in the US earlier this month.
Various herbal products in the US have been recalled because they were found to contain the drug.
The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority, which oversees medicines in the UK, said that any product containing the drug was considered “harmful to human health”.
They said that not only could it have side effects including high blood pressure, seizures, heart attacks or strokes, but could interfere with other prescription medicines.
Its head of herbal policy, Richard Woodfield, said: “People need to be aware that Payouji tea and Pai You Guo Slim Capsules are unlicensed herbal medicines and therefore have not met assured standards.”
Anyone who experiences side-effects after taking a herbal medicine can report this to the MHRA using its Yellow Card Scheme.
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December 22nd, 2009 at 12:08 am
The UK is a true nation of tea and coffee drinkers. Each person drinks on average 25 cups of tea and coffee a week, and, as a whole, almost 10 million cuppas every hour.
A cuppa is one of life’s small pleasures, but there has always been some confusion and debate about whether tea and coffee are good for you.
A new study has found that tea and coffee could be good for your heart. In a report published in November 2009, nutrition expert Dr Carrie Ruxton compared the findings of 47 independent studies and found that drinking up to eight cups of tea a day gives you ‘significant health benefits’, including a lower risk of heart attacks and strokes, as well as making you feel more alert and cheerful. She said the optimum caffeine intake for an adult is 400mg a day, equivalent to eight cups of tea or four coffees, and it’s good for kids too, although they should be limited to 95mg a day.
Another study revealed that drinking just two strong cups of coffee a day could be enough to fight Alzheimer’s.
Research carried out on mice by scientists in Florida discovered that 500mg of caffeine a day sharpened their memories – a major breakthrough because caffeine is a safe drug for most people.
Nueroscientist Dr Gary Arendash said: ‘The new findings provide evidence that caffeine could be a viable “treatment” for established Alzheimer’s disease, and not simply a protective strategy.’
It seems that, as with many things we drink or eat, tea and coffee have some health benefits, but also a few risks too.
May 8th, 2010 at 4:35 am
WO cups of coffee a day can protect some heart attack victims from complications that may lead to coronary failure, scientists said yesterday.
Coffee drinkers with normal blood pressure were 88 per cent less likely to develop a condition restricting blood flow.
And the European Society of Cardiology, meeting in Prague, was told that heart attack patients who drank three or more cups of coffee a day were 90 per cent less likely to develop the condition, known as left ventricular systolic dysfunction or LVSD.
The study’s recommendation goes against evidence of people suffering palpitations and irregular heart rhythms after drinking strong coffee.
LVSD, which cuts the heart’s ability to pump blood around the body by 40 per cent, often leads to heart failure and affects 30 million people in Europe.
May 26th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Women who drink a single cup every day are ten per cent less likely to develop the disease than those who never drink tea.
Those drinking two cups a day or more see a slightly greater benefit, with their cancer risk reduced by about 12 to 13 per cent.
Previous studies have suggested green tea in particular can have powerful anti-tumour effects.
But the latest research, published in the journal Cancer Causes and Control, shows black tea – the kind most widely consumed in Britain – may be almost as effective.
More than 6,000 women a year in the UK are diagnosed with cancer of the ovaries.
The disease accounts for about five per cent of cancer deaths in women. Its sometimes known as a silent killer because for many victims symptoms only appear once it is already fairly advanced.
The main risk factors include a family history of the disease, having already had breast cancer and starting periods at a young age.
Women who are overweight or use hormone replacement therapy are also thought to be more at risk.
Researchers from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Australia studied almost 2,800 women aged between 18 and 79 who had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
June 9th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Using coffee for a pick-me-up may be pointless if you drink it all the time, researchers believe.
Experts say they have discovered that people who drink a lot of caffeine develop a tolerance to its stimulatory effects.
While caffeine can give people a buzz, raising alertness, the effect only works in those unused to the drink, they tell Neuropsychopharmacology journal.
They base their assumptions on the results of an experiment that they carried out on 379 volunteers.
June 12th, 2010 at 8:38 am
Drinking three or more cups of tea a day is as good for you as drinking plenty of water and may even have extra health benefits, say researchers.
The work in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition dispels the common belief that tea dehydrates.
Tea not only rehydrates as well as water does, but it can also protect against heart disease and some cancers, UK nutritionists found.
Experts believe flavonoids are the key ingredient in tea that promote health.
June 18th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Drinking several cups of tea or coffee a day appears to protect against heart disease, a 13-year-long study from the Netherlands has found.
It adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting health benefits from the most popular hot drinks.
Those who drank more than six cups of tea a day cut their risk of heart disease by a third, the study of 40,000 people found.
Consuming between two to four coffees a day was also linked to a reduced risk.
While the protective effect ceased with more than four cups of coffee a day, even those who drank this much were no more likely to die of any cause, including stroke and cancer, than those who abstained.
The Dutch tend to drink coffee with a small amount of milk and black tea without. There have been conflicting reports as to whether milk substantially affects the polyphenols – believed to be the most beneficial substance in tea.
June 20th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Drinking four cups of coffee a day protects against oral cancer, a study shows.
People with a heavy coffee habit are 39 per cent less likely to suffer from cancers of the mouth and pharynx, it suggests.
Doctors say people should drink coffee in moderation because caffeine can increase heart rate and blood pressure.
However, the researchers insist evidence is strong that some of the 1,000 chemicals in coffee – including antioxidants – can offer protection against the cancers.
The American scientists used information gleaned from nine studies from Europe, America and Central America, which compared the coffee habits of around 5,000 cancer patients and more than 9,000 healthy people.
After taking into account smoking, diet and alcohol habits, they found that regular coffee drinkers were 39 per cent less likely to develop cancers of the mouth and pharynx than people who drank no coffee.
Lead author Dr Mia Hashibe, from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, said: ‘Since coffee is so widely used and there is a relatively high incidence and low survival rate of these forms of cancers, our results have important public health implications that need to be further addressed.
October 3rd, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Using artificial neural networks and analysing mineral content, chemists from the University of Seville (US) have successfully distinguished between different kinds of tea leaves.
This technique makes it possible to differentiate between the five main varieties of tea – white, green black, Oolong and red tea.
“This method makes it possible to clearly differentiate between the five types of tea – something that is often not easy to do by eye alone – by using analysis of the leaves’ mineral content and then mathematically processing these data,” said Jose Marcos Jurado, co-author of the study and a researcher at the US.
The technique makes it possible to distinguish between the five main tea varieties (white, green, black, Oolong and red) using chemometrics- a branch of chemistry that uses mathematics to extract useful information from data obtained in the laboratory.
The researchers first determined the concentrations of the chemical elements in the leaves by using ‘inductively-coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy’, which showed the most abundant elements to be calcium, magnesium, potassium, aluminium, phosphorus and sulphur.
Other essential elements were also identified in the tea, such as copper, manganese, iron and zinc, according to the study.
Once the mineral content of the leaves was established, probabilistic neural networks were used to find out which type of tea a sample belonged to.
These networks are “mathematical algorithms that mimic the behaviour of the neurons in the human nervous system in order to process the information”, explained the expert.
This generates a model that receives an input signal (chemical data) and produces an output one, making it possible to predict the type of tea in the sample with a probability of 97 percent.
The study has been published in the journal Food Chemistry.
October 8th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Drinking just three cups of tea a day can protect against heart attacks and stroke, claim researchers.
A new review shows regular drinking of either black or green tea can reduce the risk of heart problems by 11 per cent.
It cuts the build-up of plaque in the arteries – a combination of dangerous fat and cholesterol.
The review by researchers at the University of Western Australia says the benefits of tea are largely due to the flavonoid content, antioxidant ingredients that counteract cardiovascular disease.
One cup of tea provides 150-200mg of flavonoids.
In terms of the delivery of antioxidants, two cups of tea is equivalent to five portions of vegetables or two apples.
The review published in the science journal Molecular Aspects of Medicine also found the flavonoid content of black tea is equal to that of green tea. Almost 80 per cent of Britons are tea drinkers.
Dr Jonathan Hodgson, co-author of the review, said ‘There is now consistent data indicating that tea and tea flavonoids can enhance nitric oxide status and improve endothelial function, which may be at least partly responsible for benefits on cardiovascular health.’
Dr Catherine Hood from the industry-backed Tea Advisory Panel said ‘Compared with US studies, the cardiovascular benefits of tea are particularly strong in European studies. This includes UK studies where most of the tea consumed is black.
‘Plaques in the carotid artery (a marker of atherosclerosis) have been shown to be less common in both men and women who drink tea.
‘Bearing in mind the number of studies, including human trials, data demonstrates that flavonoids in tea can inhibit the development of atherosclerosis.
‘This review also highlights evidence from randomised controlled trials showing that tea consumption may improve the health of the inner lining of the blood vessels as well as evidence that tea may reduce the risk of high blood pressure and lower blood pressure.
‘Adding milk to tea doesn’t affect the absorption of flavonoids from tea, according to several human research trials. In addition, the antioxidant effects seen in our blood following tea consumption are similar whether or not milk is added.’