Study in Japan: Drinking coffee, green tea daily lowers risk of death

Most people are drinking cups of coffee every day. As I am Japanese, I also love to drink cups of green tea every day. Do you know the cups of coffee and green tea are good for our health?

According to a Japanese Newspaper, The Asahi Shimbun, today, cups of coffee or green tea can work not only as daily pick-me-ups, but they can also lower the risk of death by almost one-quarter, according to a nearly two-decade study covering up to 90,000 people.

Coffee contains a polyphenol known as chlorogenic acid while green tea features catechin. The researchers said these likely helped to decrease the blood pressure of the subjects.

The caffeine in both drinks appears to have improved the function of blood vessels and the respiratory systems of the subjects, the researchers said.

“The caffeine may help people maintain their health,” said Mitsuhiko Noda, a consultation and treatment director at the National Center for Global Health and Medicine.

Noda and his colleagues asked 90,000 men and women across Japan ranging in age from 40 to 69 about their lifestyles and the frequency at which they drank the beverages. They kept track of the subjects’ health conditions for 19 years.

Around 13,000 of them died during the study period.

Those who consumed three to four cups of coffee a day had a 24-percent lower risk of death than people who rarely drank coffee, according to the findings, which have been published in two U.S. journals, one on nutrition and the other on epidemiology.

Drinking five cups or more of green tea each day reduced the risk of death by 13 percent in men and 17 percent in women, compared with those who consumed less than a cup a day, according to the study.

To gain an accurate assessment of the beverages’ effects on health, the researchers took into account other related factors, such as age and physical activities of the subjects, before analyzing the data on the two types of drinks.

The researchers said the beverages’ ingredients could be behind the lower incidence of death from cardiac diseases and strokes among the test subjects.

However, continually drinking pot after pot of coffee or green tea will not lead to immortality.

Noda noted that some people should be cautious about consuming so many cups of coffee or green tea.

“Drinking (the beverages) could lead to a spike in blood pressure in patients with cardiac illness,” Noda said. “Pregnant women and those with renal diseases should also be careful.”

Ref: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/sci_tech/medical/AJ201505070056