New research reveals coffee and tea drinking is positive for brain health

Great news today for lovers of coffee and tea as new peer-reviewed research published in PLOS Medicine draws a link to reduced rates of stroke and dementia.

In the study conducted between 2006 to 2020, Professor Yaogang Wang from the Tianjin Medical University studied coffee and tea intake of 365,682 participants aged between 50 to 74 years from the UK Biobank and monitored their medical outcomes relating to stroke and dementia.

Strokes are a life threatening episode that are responsible for 10 percent of deaths globally. Dementia in the most general sense is the loss of brain function, with post-stroke dementia occurring among some stroke patients.

The study found that patients that drank 2–3 cups of coffee or 3–5 cups of tea per day had the lowest incidence of stroke or dementia. Those patients that drank a combination of 2–3 cups of coffee and 2–3 cups of tea daily had a 32% lower risk of stroke and 28% lower risk of dementia compared to those participants that consumed neither coffee or tea.

The study authors comment “our findings suggested that moderate consumption of coffee and tea separately or in combination were associated with lower risk of stroke and dementia”

While the findings do not definitively show a causal link between coffee and tea consumption and reduced incidences of stroke and dementia, the results show a possible beneficial relationship associated with their consumption.