Drinking tea lowers risk of skin cancer
In a study of nearly 2,200 adults, researchers found that tea drinkers had a lower risk of developing squamous cell or basal cell carcinoma, the two most common forms of skin cancer. Men and women who had ever been regular tea drinkers – having one or more cups a day – were 20 per cent to 30 per cent less likely to develop the cancers than those who didn’t drink tea.
The effect was even stronger among study participants who’d been tea fans for decades, as well as those who regularly had at least two cups a day, according to findings published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. However, the findings do not mean it’s okay to bake in the sun as long as you have a cup of tea afterward. The researchers found no evidence that tea drinking lowered skin cancer risk in people who’d accumulated painful sunburns in the past. Nor did the study look at the relationship between tea drinking and malignant melanoma, the least common but most deadly form of skin cancer.
Still, the findings support the theory that tea antioxidants may limit the damage UV radiation inflicts on the skin, according to the study authors, led by Dr Judy R Rees of Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, New Hampshire. In particular, a tea antioxidant known as EGCG has been shown to reduce burning on UV-exposed skin. The current findings are based on interviews with 770 New Hampshire residents with basal cell carcinoma, 696 with squamous cell carcinoma, and 715 cancer-free men and women the same age.
Tea consumption was linked to a lower skin cancer risk, even with factors such as age, skin type and history of severe burns considered. However, tea drinkers who’d suffered multiple painful burns in the past did not have a lower risk of skin cancer.
Tea cuts diabetes risk
A Dutch study of more than 40,000 people over a period of 10 years has concluded that drinking 3 cups of tea per day can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 42%. Drinking more than 3 cups did not reduce the risk further. This is welcome news, as the number of people contracting type 2 diabetes has increased dramatically in the past 10 years.
It was already known that drinking coffee reduced the risk of type 2 diabetes, but the similar effects of regularly drinking tea were previously unknown. The study suggested that the beneficial effects were probably explained by the flavonoid antioxidants contained in tea.
Dr Ruxton of the UK Tea Advisory Panel said: “This study is not the first to look at the relationship between black tea and diabetes. A large study involving 36,908 Chinese men and women living in Singapore found that those who drank more than one cup of black tea a day were 14 per cent less likely to develop diabetes. This Dutch paper expands our knowledge. It is good news for the large number of people in the UK who drink black tea.”
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