Tea is better for you than coffee

FRENCH doctors have found that drinking tea is good for you – with a study of 131,000 people over seven years showing tea drinkers had 24% less risk of dying from non-heart related causes.

Prof Nicholas Danchin from the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou in Paris said tea’s beneficial effects were due to several reasons: the flavonoid and antioxidant qualities of tea, the more active lifestyles of tea drinkers and the fact that fewer smoked.

His study covered 131,400 tea and coffee drinkers between the ages of 18 and 95 and he said after presenting his research at the European Society for Cardiology meeting in Barcelona that the evidence suggested it would be better to drink tea than coffee.

He said tea-drinkers had significantly reduced blood pressure but added that there was also a gender effect as men tended to drink coffee more than women, while women drank more tea than men.

Tea-drinkers were likely to be more active than coffee drinkers and were also less likely to smoke.

During the period of the study, from 2001 to 2008, Prof Danchin said that 727 people died, with 95 of those deaths linked to cardiovascular disease.

He said the research showed that regular tea drinkers had a 24% lower risk of mortality from non cardiovascular causes compared to coffee drinkers – and that tea drinkers also had lower blood pressure.