Habitual Tea Consumption Associated With 11% Reduced Vascular Disease Risk in Large Prospective Cohort

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Summary of  Journal of Internal Medicine  https://doi.org/10.1111/joim.70172
Dr. Zichen Ye et al.

Points

Researchers evaluated four hundred eighty five thousand nine hundred thirty four adults followed over nine years to analyze the relationship between habitual tea consumption and vascular disease risk.
Prospective tracking recorded fourteen thousand eight hundred sixty three vascular disease events confirming that regular tea intake was associated with an eleven percent overall risk reduction.
Dose response analysis demonstrated that consuming six to eight cups daily of moderate strength tea provided optimal protective benefits while burning hot temperatures increased vascular risk.
Comparative subtype analysis showed that black tea conferred more consistent inverse associations with vascular disease than green tea across long term follow up intervals.
Authors concluded that combining habitual tea consumption with non current smoking and high physical activity achieved the lowest overall incidence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events.

Summary

This study evaluated the association between multidimensional tea consumption patterns and long-term risk of vascular disease (VD) in a large prospective adult cohort. Published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, the investigation analyzed long-term health outcomes across major vascular disease sub-types, including cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, pulmonary heart disease, and peripheral artery disease. Given the high global burden of cardiometabolic and vascular conditions, the research sought to elucidate how specific tea-drinking characteristics—including tea type, brew strength, fluid temperature, daily intake volume, and concurrent lifestyle behaviors—modulate incident vascular risk.

The prospective cohort study followed 485,934 adult participants in China over a median follow-up period of 9.05 years, during which 14,863 incident cases of vascular disease were documented. Multivariate analysis revealed that regular, habitual tea consumption was associated with an 11% overall reduction in vascular disease risk compared to non-tea drinkers. Nonlinear dose-response modeling identified an optimal protective threshold at approximately 6 to 8 cups per day among weekly drinkers. Subgroup analyses demonstrated that black tea conferred more consistent inverse associations with vascular disease than green tea, while moderate brew strength yielded the lowest risk profile. Conversely, consuming “burning hot” tea was associated with an elevated risk of vascular disease. Joint behavioral analyses showed that combining habitual tea intake with non-current smoking status and high physical activity yielded the lowest overall vascular disease incidence.

The authors conclude that habitual tea consumption is independently associated with a reduced risk of composite vascular disease, though protective efficacy varies substantially according to specific brewing characteristics and daily volume. Combining moderate-strength tea consumption with key healthy lifestyle behaviors provides substantial synergistic risk reduction. These findings highlight the clinical utility of considering multidimensional dietary habits and lifestyle patterns when assessing cardiovascular risk and formulating public health recommendations for vascular disease prevention.

Link to the article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.70172

References

Ye, Z., Wang, Y., Qu, Y., Chen, M., Fan, J., Zhu, H., Han, K., Zhao, Y., Wang, J., Lu, Q., Sun, D., Yu, C., Lv, J., Guo, Y., Jiang, Y., Li, L., & the China Kadoorie Biobank Collaborative Group. (2026). Habitual tea consumption is associated with lower cardiovascular disease risk. Journal of Internal Medicine, joim.70172. https://doi.org/10.1111/joim.70172