Although technology and medicine have evolved a long way in the past decades, strokes and dementia are still challenging to predict and avoid. Once a patient is diagnosed with dementia, the current treatments can only slow down the disease but not cure it. Recent research mentions that strokes are responsible for 19% of death worldwide and that more than 130 million people will develop dementia by 2050.
The results of a cohort study that took over a decade were released two days ago in the Plos MEDICINE Journal, and the results suggest drinking coffee and tea can help prevent strokes and dementia. Researchers led by Yuan Zhang from the Tianjin Medical University in China discovered that drinking coffee, or both coffee and tea regularly, could lower the risks of a stroke or post-stroke dementia.
More about the UK Biobank study
The study conducted by Yuan Zhang followed 365,000 people aged 50 to 74 for over ten years. All participants declared at the beginning of the study the quantities of tea and coffee they drank. Over the years, researchers determined that participants who drank two or three cups of coffee and two or three cups of tea on a daily basis had the lowest risk of suffering a stroke or dementia. Their risk of suffering a stroke was 32% lower, and the risk of dementia was 28% lower compared to those who did not consume coffee or tea on a regular basis.
The study concluded that moderate consumption of coffee alone or coffee and tea could lower the chances of suffering a stroke or dementia. The authors of the study concluded:
In conclusion, we found that drinking coffee and tea separately or in combination were associated with a lower risk of stroke and dementia. Moreover, drinking coffee alone or in combination with tea was associated with a lower risk of poststroke dementia. Our findings support an association between moderate coffee and tea consumption and the risk of stroke and dementia. However, whether the provision of such information can improve stroke and dementia outcomes remains to be determined.