Women tea-drinkers have less plaque in arteries

The potential health benefits of tea consumption continue to add up. The latest association is that women who drink at least 3 glasses of tea daily may be protecting themselves from artery-clogging plaques. At least this was the findings of a French health study published in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, February 2008 and reported in Reuters Health.

Carotid plaques were evident in 44 percent of female non-tea-drinkers, in 42.5 percent of women who reported drinking 1 to 2 cups of tea daily, and in only 33.7 percent of those who reported drinking 3 or more cups per day.

The normal qualifiers that "association" does not necessarily equate to causation and that studies of this type are notoriously difficult because of the enormous number of independent factors that can affect the results. That said, the researchers stated that the study did attempt to isolate possible variables including other dietary habits, major vascular risk factors, age, area of residence, and education. But since positive health correlations have been found in other studies, plus tea is considered safe and it is inexpensive, there seems to be little risk in increasing your tea consumption to three cups a day. This is particularly true if one of your cups of tea replaces a soft drink.

Surprisingly the benefits seemed to be exclusive to women as the researchers found no association between drinking tea and carotid plaques in men.