Drinking coffee, tea may lower risk of stroke

New York, February 21: A common belief that drinking tea and coffee will cause loss of fluids from the body and dehydration has been annulled by two recent studies which have revealed that the consumption of both beverages may lower an individual’s risk of stroke.

Drinking three or more cups of tea a day- whether the tea is green tea or black tea- can reduce a person’s risk of suffering a stroke by as much as 21 percent, found a new research by experts at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Second study by scientists at UCLA and the University of Southern California has found that the more cups of coffee people drink, the less likely they will be to suffer a stroke.

Findings of both the studies, which were presented Thursday in San Diego at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2009, show that strokes were rarer among the tea and coffee drinkers than those who were not.

The tea study shows that the odds of having a stroke may be significantly lower for the tea drinkers. The more you drink, the less likely you will be to have a stroke, the study concludes.

"By drinking three cups of tea a day, the risk of a stroke was reduced 21%," said Lenore Arab, professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine and the lead author of the tea study.

Both Black and green teas were studied, and Arab said the effect was found in tea made from the plant Camellia sinensis, not herbs.

Although, it is still unclear how the tea cuts stroke risk, but researchers speculate that the anti-oxidant epigallocatechin gallate or the amino acid Theanine found in black and green tea may be what helps.

"That's why these findings are so exciting," Arab said. "If we can find a way to prevent the stroke, or prevent the damage, that is simple and not toxic, that would be a great advance."

Funded by the Unilever Lipton Institute of Tea, a research and development arm of Lipton Tea, the tea study had pooled data from 10 studies of clot-related strokes that mentioned tea consumption. The studies involved 4,378 strokes among more than 194,000 people, many from Asia

Coffee drinkers may have reason to enjoy their brew, too, according to another study conducted by Dr. David Liebeskind, an associate clinical professor of neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The more cups of coffee you drink the less likely you will be to suffer a stroke, suggests the coffee study.

To reach their findings, Dr. Liebeskind and colleagues reviewed national health survey data from nearly 9,400 U.S. adults aged 40 and older, and found that the more cups of coffee participants drank, the less likely they were to have a stroke.

Stroke is the sudden death of brain cells in a localized area due to inadequate blood flow. It is a medical emergency that requires immediate treatment. Sometimes called a brain attack or a cerebrovascular accident (CVA), the disease is the second leading of death globally and the leading cause of disability.