Tea Consumption And Risk Of Brain Infarction

Objective This study prospectively assessed the association between tea consumptionand risk of brain infarction.Methods In this prospective cohort study,76,864men and19,740women wereincluded and were categorized according to the frequency of tea intake which werecollected during2006-2008by questionnaire. The study was followed up for an averageof4.02years. Meanwhile collected the following information: gender, age, Past MedicalHistory(cerebral infarction,hypertension,type2diabetes, coronary heart disease),historyof smoking and drinking,imageological diagnosis and the laboratory test results,et al. Toassess the association between tea consumption and risk of stroke, we used the Coxproportional hazards regression to compute hazard ratios (HRs) and their95%confidenceintervals (CIs). We adjusted for age (years) and systolic blood pressure (mmHg) in thefirst model. We further adjusted for potential confounders, including gender, age, bloodpressure, waist circumference, fasting plasma glucose and total cholesterol, smoking,alcohol drinking, salt intake, and medical history. Data management and statisticalanalysis were performed using SPSS version13.0for Windows (SPSS, Chicago, USA).Results1.Higher frequency of tea intake were associated with obesity, higher systolicblood pressure and diastolic blood pressure, fasting plasma glucose, higher serumconcentrations of total cholesterol and C-reactive protein, more men and more higherincome, smoking, alcohol drinking, salt intake, more history of hypertension, diabetesmellitus.2.The cumulately incidence of brain infarction for categorizations of teaconsumption were1.517%(868/65223),0.852%(163/22869),1.998%(143/8512).3.The multiple-adjusted HR(95%confidence intervals) of brain infarction acrosscategorizations of tea intake were1.000(ref),0.713(0.597～0.852),0.986(0.814～1.193).Conclusion In this community-based study, our findings is a negatively relationshipbetween the medium frequency of tea intake and risk of brain infarction. Tea is a safe andcheap beverage without any apparent danger from over consumption. Tea drinkingshould be encouraged as it can potentially serve as a practical method of strokeprevention. Tea is a pleasant， popular， socially accepted， economical and safedrink that is initially as medicine， later as beverage and now proven well as future potential of becoming an important industrial and pharmaceutical raw material. Now thatwe have rediscovered this ancient wonder， we need to grab hold of it and use it to ouradvantage. The scientists should take serious concern to propagate the message ofmedicinal properties and therapeutic values of tea to the consumers...