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medpundit |
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Tuesday, May 07, 2002“Research by doctors in Israel found heavy drinkers - those who drank more than 14 cups of tea a week - had a 44% lower death rate than non-tea drinkers in the three and a half years following their heart attacks. Moderate tea drinkers - those who consumed less than 15 cups a week - had a 28% lower rate of dying over the same period, according to the study, published in the journal Circulation. Dr Kenneth Mukamal and colleague's at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre in Boston, US, examined 1,900 people, mainly in their 60s, who had suffered a heart attack. The patients were interviewed on average four days after their attack and asked how much tea they consumed. Some 1,019 were categorised as non-tea drinkers, 615 were moderate drinkers 266 were considered heavy drinkers. The patients were followed up almost four years later, by which time 313 had died mainly from heart disease. The researchers found that the less tea the patients drank the more likely they were to have died during the period. There was little difference between patients in terms of education, income, and their exercise, smoking and drinking habits, which could generally be responsible for variations in mortality rates.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t access the article from Circulation without paying for it. I’ll have to wait for it to come out in my local hospital library, but the abstract didn’t give much more information than the BBC piece. I have to wonder if the difference in mortality is truly significant, however, given the large disparity in numbers between non-tea drinkers and tea drinkers. The relatively small numbers of heavy tea drinkers can make their survival rates seem more significant than they truly are. The actual numbers may not turn out to be as impressive as the authors make them sound. Of course, even if tea is good for your heart, you can get too much of a good thing, as shown by this case study of a man who was excessively fond of his tea: "A 44-year-old man presented in May, 2001, with muscle cramps. He had no medical history of note, but volunteered the fact that he had been drinking up to 4 L of black tea per day over the past 25 years. His preferred brand was GoldTeefix (Tekanne, Salzburg, Austria). Since this type of tea had given him occasional gastric pain, he changed to Earl Grey (Twinings & Company, London, UK), which he thought would be less harmful to his stomach. 1 week after the change, he noticed repeated muscle cramps for some seconds in his right foot. The longer he drank Earl Grey tea, the more intense the muscle cramps became. After 3 weeks, they also occurred in the left foot. After 5 weeks, muscle cramps had spread towards the hands and the right calf. Occasionally, he observed fasciculations of the right adductor pollicis and gastrocnemius. Additionally, he noted distal paraesthesias in all limbs, and a feeling of pressure in his eyes, associated with blurred vision, particularly in darkness." He cut his tea back to one liter a day and did much better. No report on how healthy his heart is. posted by Sydney on 5/07/2002 06:31:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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