China Kadoorie Biobank Links 6-8 Daily Tea Cups to 11% Lower Vascular Disease Risk in 485,934 Adults
Observational data from nearly half a million Chinese adults associate 6-8 cups of daily tea with modestly lower vascular risk, strongest for ischemic stroke. The findings remain limited by self-report, potential confounding, and lack of causal confirmation from RCTs. Very hot tea showed elevated risk, reinforcing temperature guidance.
Next steps require randomized trials testing unsweetened tea against neutral beverages with hard cardiovascular endpoints; such trials would need to enroll at least 10,000 participants and follow them for five years to detect an 11% relative risk reduction with adequate power.
UK Biobank reanalysis: Regular tea intake will show <8% relative risk reduction for incident MI after full adjustment for polygenic risk scores within 24 months of publication.
Sources (2)
- [1]Primary Source(https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.13489)
- [2]Supporting Source(https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1803180)