Drinking at least four cups of tea per day has the potential to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, a new study suggests. The research findings, a review of 19 previous such studies, which will be presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Stockholm, Sweden, suggest that drinking four cups of tea daily could potentially decrease the risk of type 2 diabetes by 17 per cent.
The average use of black, green, or oolong tea is associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to the study. The study was conducted involving more than 1 million participants from eight different countries.
“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,” said Xiaying Li of Wuhan University of Science and Technology in China, the lead author of the study.
Adults who drank between one and three cups of tea daily had a 4 percent lower risk of type 2 diabetes than those who didn’t, while those who drank at least four cups daily had a 17 percent lower risk of getting affected by the disease.
Researchers discovered that the probabilities of type 2 diabetes, for tea drinkers and non-drinkers, were comparable after controlling for variables including age, sex, and physical inactivity that are known to be associated with an increased risk of getting type 2 diabetes.
No matter the sort of tea the participants drank, whether they identified as male or female, or where they lived, connections were still there, suggesting that the amount of tea consumed may be more significant than any other element in explaining the associations. Drinking tea can help reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, but only in big doses, Li added.
Oolong tea, a classic Chinese brew, is also made from the same plant that yields green tea and black tea. Oolong tea is partially oxidised while black tea is allowed to totally oxidise, this difference is due to the processing procedure. Green tea is not permitted to significantly oxidise.
