Coffee and Tea: Is It Healthy? Can It Reduce Stroke Risks?

To get a kick to start the day off, millions of people across the globe brew a cup of coffee in the morning. Some, thinking that too much coffee is bad, switch to drinking tea instead, as it turns out these drinks could actually be good for a person's health.

Understanding the Link Between Coffee, Tea, Stroke, and Dementia

In an effort to better understand the relationship between everyone's favourite morning cup, stroke, and dementia, researchers from the Tianjin Medical University analyzed coffee and tea-drinking habits of roughly 400,000 adults in the UK between the ages 50 and 74.

Results suggested that not only did drinking coffee and tea on a daily basis potentially hold protective effects against both dementia and stroke, but people that drank a combination of both beverages daily fared the best over the course of the 14- year study.

The study published in the journal PLOS Medicine, titled "Consumption of coffee and tea and risk of developing stroke, dementia, and poststroke dementia: A cohort study in the UK Biobank" found that participants that drank two to three cups of coffee, and three to five cups of tea, or a combination of four to six cups daily had lower risks for stroke and dementia compared to people that drank less or none at all.

The participants of the study that mixed both beverages, drinking two to three cups of coffee with the same amount of tea daily had 32% fewer risks of stroke and 28% fewer risks of dementia.

Although previous studies have suggested that coffee consumption, especially dark roast coffee, can reduce a person's risks of Alzheimer's disease, and a daily cup of tea can aid in fending off cognitive decline, experts are still on the road to fully understanding the mechanisms behind the phenomena. In the recent study, the team specifically wanted to identify whether the combination of beverages had any effect on dementia incidence and other age-related brain disorders.

Roughly 10 % of deaths across the globe are due to stroke, according to a study in 2017. Dementia is a common after-effect of non-lethal stroke with the World Health Organization estimating roughly 55 million people across the globe are affected.

Coffee Drinking and Health

Although experts are not suggesting that people who do not avidly drink either of the beverages start mainlining the drinks, the recent study gives a good reason for avid drinkers to not feel bad about the popular daily habit. The chair of the American Stroke Association Advisory Committee, Dr Lee H Schwamm tells CNN that we cannot impute causality between the drinks and say that drinking more coffee or tea is good for a person's brain. However, experts can say that participants of the study that reported moderate consumption of coffee and tea were seen to have fewer risks of stroke or dementia occurring in a 10-year span.

The findings of the study should be taken with a pinch of salt, participants of the study reported their own consumption of the drinks making it more observational than controlled. Regardless, it is best to enjoy your morning cup of coffee and tea.