Drinking lots of tea helps to reduce diabetes risk in middle age

Scientists in Germany have claimed that people who drink four or more cups of tea every day are helping to reduce their chances of developing type 2 diabetes in middle age, in good news for tea drinkers in the UK, where four cups is the average consumption.
The research, which was carried out at 26 centres in eight European countries involving over 12,000 cases of type 2 diabetes as well as thousands of non-diabetics, showed that four or more cups of tea was able to lower the risk of diabetes by 20 per cent, while drinking less than that was found to have little effect.
With the results supporting previous research that pinpointed tea consumption as being linked to a lower incidence of type 2 diabetes, this study examined effects on the development of type 2 diabetes, with tea drinking recognised as one of the dietary factors.
As team leader Christian Herder, from the Leibniz Center for Diabetes Research in Düsseldorf, said “Increasing our understanding of modifiable lifestyle factors associated with the development of type 2 diabetes is important, as the prevalence of diabetes is increasing rapidly.”
He added “Tea consumption may lower the risk of type 2 diabetes by influencing glucose digestion, glucose uptake, and by protecting beta cells from free-radical damage. This beneficial effect may be due to the polyphenols present in tea.”