Drinking at least four cups of any of these teas per day has been linked with a 17% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes over an average period of 10 years, according to research published Saturday. The research, which hasn't yet been published in a scientific journal, will be presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes Annual Meeting in Stockholm this week.
The abstract authors first studied 5,199 adults with no history of type 2 diabetes who had participated in the China Health and Nutrition Survey . The CHNS is a prospective study examining the economics, sociological issues and health of residents from nine Chinese provinces. They were recruited in 1997 and followed until 2009. At the beginning of the study, participants provided information about lifestyle factors such as food and drink habits, exercise, smoking and alcohol consumption.
The authors cautioned that their research doesn't prove that drinking tea reduced type 2 diabetes risk, but does suggest tea-drinking likely contributes, according to a news release. They also noted that they relied on participants' own assessments of their tea consumption and couldn't rule out the possibility that unmeasured lifestyle and physiological factors could have affected the results.
"The findings need to be taken with a very large pinch of salt ," Kevin McConway, an emeritus professor of applied statistics at The Open University in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. "The trouble with meta-analysis findings is that the devil is always in the detail, and we don't have the detail.
something I do daily for years
Nice! Hot tea, cold tea, that’s the drink for me!