Symptoms of dementia include memory loss, problems with language and changes in mood.
Drinking tea or coffee may reduce the risk of stroke and dementia by around one-third, research finds.
Dementia is a degradation of brain function and overall health that comes with age.
Symptoms include memory loss, problems with language and changes in mood.
Strokes are when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off temporarily, which can cause brain damage.
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia.
The benefits of tea may come from the flavonoids it contains.
Flavonoids are antioxidants and part of the polyphenol class found in plants and known to have several health benefits and help prevent various diseases.
Tea, berries and apples can all help ward off dementia, another study has found.
Older people eating more flavonoid-rich foods reduced their dementia risk by up to four times, that study found.
Drinking tea has also been linked to better overall brain health.
People had better connected brains if they drank all types of tea, including oolong, black or green tea, at least four times a week over a 25 year period.
Regular tea drinkers have better organised brain regions.
Moderate consumption
Chinese researchers used data from over 350,000 people in the Biobank project.
The Biobank is a long-term project that tracks the health and well-being of volunteers in the UK.
Health data for participants was tracked over at least 10 years, including their intake of tea and coffee.
The results showed that people drinking 2-3 cups of coffee or 3-5 cups of tea per day had the lowest risk of stroke or dementia.
This amount of tea lowered the risk of stroke by 32 percent and dementia by 28 percent.
The study’s authors write:
“Our findings suggested that moderate consumption of coffee and tea separately or in combination were associated with lower risk of stroke and dementia.”
The study was published in the journal PLoS Medicine (Zhang et al., 2021).
