Tea may improve brain function later in life

According to an ancient Chinese legend, in 2737 BCE, the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was sitting beneath a tree while a servant boiled water. Some leaves from that tree fell into the emperor’s drink, and he decided to see how the drink tasted. Thus tea was born.

According to the UK Tea & Infusions Association, tea has been a part of Chinese culture long before it spread to the rest of the world, with some evidence suggesting tea has been a common part of daily life in China since 200 CE, with the drink becoming the official drink of the country in approximately 600 CE.

Since then, the drink has spread with incredible popularity all over the world due to its variety of tastes, and it is now so common almost every restaurant and café serves it.

However, tea may not only have the benefit of being flavorful, it is also being related to various health benefits, from decreasing chances of liver disease to improving cognitive function in older age.

According to the First Affiliated Hospital in Zhejiang, China, which took several studies from China, Japan and the U.S., green tea played a role in combating liver disease and helped to slow its progression. This is only one of many health benefits brought about by tea, another of which is tea’s apparent ability to improve cognitive function during later stages of life.

At Singapore’s Yong Loo Yin School of Medicine, assistant professor Feng Lee and his team have conducted a recent study to determine how various types of tea affect mental acuity later in life.

The study was done with nearly one thousand elderly Chinese citizens over the age of 55 all in community living.

For two years their daily tea consumption was monitored, and for five years thereafter, their cognitive function was monitored.

The researchers found a shocking difference in the cognitive function between tea drinkers and non-tea drinkers, showing that those who drank tea daily reduced their risk of cognitive impairment by 50 percent. Even more shocking was that those with a specific gene called APOE4, which puts a person genetically at risk for developing Alzheimer’s, reduced their risk of developing cognitive impairment by up to 86 percent by drinking tea daily.

Another remarkable aspect of this study was that the type of tea consumed by these Chinese citizens was not consistent during the length of the trial. Some drank black, green or oolong, but it appeared that the type of tea did not affect the health benefits, only the fact that they drank tea.

“Based on current knowledge, this long term benefit of tea consumption is due to the bioactive compounds in tea leaves, such as catechins, theaflavins, thearubigins and L-theanine,” Lee said.

These aspects of tea aid in cognitive function because they prevent neurological degeneration as well as vascular inflammation by acting as anti-inflammatory agents as well as powerful antioxidants.

These are likely the same elements of tea that cause many of its other benefits, since soothing the inflammatory T-cell response of the immune system can help reduce the effects of arthritis, allergies and many other inflammation related ailments.

Although this study was only performed on elderly Chinese citizens, the researchers at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine are confident that the results found in their studies should apply to everyone.

The main focus of this study, however, was its implications for current research on cognitive function in later life. While therapies exist to assist in treatment for dementia, there are few known preventative measures.

The researchers stress that this simple, inexpensive lifestyle change may prevent extreme hardship in later life caused by neurological degeneration.