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This Study Will Give You Another Reason To Love Tea

Salva Mubarak
Senior Features Writer

Most of us will find our evenings incomplete without a fortifying cup of tea. Tea, in all its forms, is one of the most perfect companions for a cosy night in or a pick-me-up in the middle of a dreary work day.

Aside from being delicious and comforting, the beverage comes packed with plenty of health benefits, including relieving headaches, helping with digestion issues, and boosting immunity. But one new study has uncovered another health benefit of tea that would completely justify the multiple cups you consume every day.

A study presented at the 2022 European Association for the Study of Diabetes has revealed that some varieties of tea (oolong, green, and black) can lower the risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes.

Researchers at the Wuhan University of Science and Technology claim that drinking four cups of tea a day can directly lower the risk of Type 2 Diabetes over an average period of 10 years.

“Our results are exciting because they suggest that people can do something as simple as drinking four cups of tea a day to potentially lessen their risk of developing type 2 diabetes,” said the lead author of the study, Xiaying Li from Wuhan University of Science and Technology in China, in a statement.

The researchers studied the data of 5,199 adults with an average age of 42, and no history of diabetes, from 1997 to 2009. These participants had filled out questionnaires detailing their food and drink frequencies (focusing on tea drinking habits) and also provided information on their lifestyle, like exercise patterns, smoking and drinking habits etc.

Through this research, they discovered that 2,379 participants reported drinking multiple cups of tea daily and 522 had developed T2D over the time period.

Post this, they also reviewed 19 cohort studies from eight countries and analysed the data of 1,076,311 participants to come to the conclusion that tea can, in fact, prevent you from getting diabetes.

While further research is being conducted into narrowing down the exact variables that allow tea to work its magic like this, this is a promising study for anyone who cannot live without their daily cup (or cups!) of tea.