Dementia is an important public health concern with about 55 million cases worldwide and an incidence of more than 10 million new cases each year. Dementia has become a major cause of disability, dependency and mortality among older people. Emerging research, from animal experiments and cohort studies, however, indicates that drinking either green or black tea effectively inhibits brain aging and improves cognitive disorders.

To investigate the association between tea consumption and the risk of dementia, Jintai Yu, Professor at Fudan University-affiliated Huashan Hospital and a Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute Investigator, and his team conducted a large-scale prospective cohort study with over 370,000 participants during a 9-year period. The research showed that tea drinkers were 16% less likely to develop dementia, Alzheimers and vascular dementia compared with non-drinkers. Furthermore, a U-shaped association between tea consumption and dementia risk was shown with the consumption of about three cups per day (*1cup≈250mL) showing the strongest protective effect. Relevant findings have been published in Translational Psychiatry, a peer-reviewed medical journal of the Nature Publishing Group.

Read more on Translational Psychiatry’s site

*Image by dungthuyvunguyen from Pixabay *