Shockingly Simple: Drink More Tea To Reduce the Risk of Developing Type 2 Diabetes



According to the findings of a systematic review and meta-analysis of 19 cohort studies including more than 1 million adults from eight countries, moderate use of black, green, or oolong tea is connected to a lower risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes (T2D).

According to the research, having at least four cups of tea each day reduces T2D risk by 17% over an average of 10 years. This year's European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) Annual Meeting will feature a presentation of the study in Stockholm, Sweden (September 19-23).                                                             
According to main author Xiaying Li of Wuhan University of Science and Technology in China, "our results are intriguing because they imply that people can do something as easy as drinking four cups of tea a day to potentially lower their chance of acquiring type 2 diabetes."

Tea has a variety of anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and anti-carcinogenic chemicals. Although the health benefits of regular tea use have long been recognized, it has been less certain how regular tea consumption and the risk of T2D are related. Cohort studies and meta-analyses that have been published so far have presented conflicting results.

Researchers conducted a cohort research and a dose-response meta-analysis to more clearly establish the link between tea consumption and future risk of T2D in order to address this uncertainty.

Adults who drank 1-3 cups of tea per day had a 4% decreased risk of T2D compared to those who didn't. What's more impressive is that individuals who drank at least 4 cups each day decreased their risk by 17%.

First, they examined 5,199 participants from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), recruited in 1997 and followed until 2009, with an average age of 42 and no prior history of T2D (2583 men and 2616 women). The CHNS is a multicenter prospective study that examines inhabitants from nine provinces' socioeconomic conditions as well as their physical and mental health.                      
Participants initially answered a questionnaire about their frequency of eating and drinking. Additionally, they offered details on lifestyle choices like regular exercise, smoking, and drinking. 2,379 people in total (or 46%) admitted to drinking tea. A total of 522 participants (10%) had T2D by the end of the research.

After controlling for variables such as age, sex, and physical inactivity that are known to be associated with an elevated risk of T2D, researchers discovered that tea drinkers had a similar risk of getting the disease as non-drinkers. Additionally, when people who got diabetes during the first three years of follow-up were eliminated and the results were broken down by age and sex, they did not significantly alter the findings.

The researchers then conducted a systematic evaluation of all cohort studies examining the relationship between tea consumption and the risk of T2D in adults (aged 18 or older) up until September 2021. The dose-response meta-analysis includes a total of 19 cohort studies with 1,076,311 participants from eight nations (China, the USA, Finland, Japan, the UK, Singapore, the Netherlands, and France).

Different tea varieties (green tea, oolong tea, and black tea), frequency of tea consumption (less than one cup per day, one to three cups per day, and four or more cups per day), sex (male and female), and the study's setting were all examined for their potential effects on the risk of T2D. (Europe and America, or Asia).

Overall, the meta-analysis discovered a linear relationship between tea consumption and T2D risk, with each daily cup of tea lowering risk by about 1%.

Adults who drank 1-3 cups of tea per day had a 4% lower risk of T2D than those who didn't. What's more impressive is that individuals who drank at least 4 cups each day decreased their risk by 17%.

Regardless of the type of tea people drank, whether they were male or female, or where they resided, the correlations persisted. This shows that a key impact may be the quantity of tea taken rather than any other.

Our results imply that drinking tea is beneficial in lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes, but only at large levels (at least 4 cups a day), adds Li. However, more research is needed to pinpoint the precise dosage and processes underlying these observations.

She continues, "It is plausible that specific tea constituents, like polyphenols, may lower blood glucose levels, but it may need a significant quantity of these bioactive substances to be effective. It may also be the reason why, despite looking at higher tea intake, we did not discover a link between type 2 diabetes and tea drinking in our cohort analysis.

The same plant that is used to produce green and black teas is also used to manufacture oolong tea, a traditional Chinese beverage. The processing method makes a difference; oolong tea is partially oxidized, black tea is allowed to oxidize till it turns black, and green tea is not permitted to oxidize much.

The study is observational, the authors point out, despite the significant findings. As a result, despite suggesting that it is a potential contribution, it cannot be proven that drinking tea lowers the risk of T2D.

The research team also mentions a number of cautions, such as the fact that they relied on estimates of the amounts of tea consumed that were made subjectively and that they cannot completely rule out the possibility of residual confounding from other lifestyle and physiological factors that may have influenced the outcomes.

The study was funded by the Sanuo Diabetes Charity Foundation, China, the Xiangyang Science and Technology Plan Project, China, the Young Talents Project of the Hubei Provincial Health Commission, China, and the Science and Technology Research Key Project of the Education Department of Hubei Province, China.

By DIABETOLOGIA 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do You Sleep on Your Back or Side? Here's The Research on 'Optimal' Sleep Positions

Image
William Dement, a renowned sleep researcher at Stanford University, is quoted as saying that after 50 years of study, the only reason he can think of for why we sleep is "because we become sleepy." Sleep certainly matters for our health and wellbeing even though it may be, as one researcher put it, "the sole major habit in quest of a function." Do we, however, have it right? What do studies on sleeping positions say? Is there a proper sleeping position? The majority of people favor sleeping on their side. This is encouraging news because people who sleep on their backs are more likely to have trouble falling asleep or breathing during the night. Most of the time, we have a tendency to shift around quite a bit at night. According to a study involving 664 sleepers, on average, participants slept on their side 54% of the time, their back 37% of the time, and their front 7% of the time. Males are more likely to change positions throughout the night and move their arms, ...
Read more

A Briefcase-Sized Box Is Already Making Oxygen on Mars

Image
Currently, the Martian atmosphere is in no way hospitable to Earthlings. It is formed primarily of carbon dioxide and is over 100 times less dense than Earth's atmosphere. It would soon stop breathing completely for any individuals who tried to breathe in it. A modest device, about the size of a suitcase, has been consistently extracting breathable oxygen from the Martian atmosphere on that sandy, arid, alien world. In order to manufacture breathing air for a human expedition to the red planet, it is the first demonstration of the processing of in situ resources for human use on another world. Its name is MOXIE (Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Experiment), and it is a device that utilizes electrolysis to separate Martian carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide and oxygen. It is mounted inside NASA's Perseverance rover. According to the researchers, MOXIE produced oxygen seven times as much between February 2021, when Perseverance arrived, until the end of 2021. Acco...
Read more

New DNA Research Unlocks Secrets of Native Rodents’ Rat Race to New Lands

Image
More than 150 different native rodent species from Australia, New Guinea, and Melanesian islands have had their DNA sequenced in recent studies. It provides a fuller understanding of their connections and the circumstances surrounding their expansion throughout the Pacific. The Australian National University's (ANU) Dr. Emily Roycroft, the study's lead author, said native rodents are an interesting but frequently underappreciated evolutionary group. Dr. Roycroft noted that over 150 species in Australia and New Guinea are unique to those regions and include the rakali, sometimes known as the "water rat," which is frequently spotted swimming in the lakes near Canberra. We now know relatively little about the history and development of native rodents, particularly those found in New Guinea. In order to obtain DNA from museum specimens up to 180 years old, including several extinct and secretive species, the study team developed a novel technique. "One Guadalcanal ra...
Read more