Abstract
Tea is the most ancient and popular beverage in the world, and its beneficial health effects has attracted tremendous attention worldwide. However, the prospective evidence relating green tea consumption to total and cause-specific mortality is still limited and inconclusive. We recruited 164,681 male participants free of pre-existing disease during 1990–1991, with green tea consumption and other covariates assessed by the standardized questionnaire and mortality follow up continued until 2006 (mean 11 years; total person-years: 1,961,791). Cox regression analyses were used to quantify the associations of green tea consumption with all-cause (n = 32,700), CVD (n = 11,839) and cancer (n = 7002) mortality, adjusting simultaneously for potential confounders. At baseline, 18 % reported regular consumption of green tea. Compared with non-green tea drinkers, regular drinkers had significantly lower all-cause mortality, with adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) being 0.94 (95 % CI 0.89, 0.99) for ≤5 g/day, 0.95 (0.91, 0.99) for 5–10 g/day and 0.89 (0.85, 0.93) for >10 g/day. For CVD mortality, the corresponding HRs were 0.93 (0.85, 1.01) 0.91 (0.85, 0.98) and 0.86 (0.79, 0.93), respectively, while for cancer they were 0.86 (0.78, 0.98), 0.92 (0.83, 1.00) and 0.79 (0.71, 0.88), respectively. The patterns of these associations varied by smoking, alcohol drinking and locality. This large prospective study shows that regular green tea consumption is associated with significantly reduced risk of death from all-cause, CVD and cancer among Chinese adults.
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Acknowledgments
The original survey and subsequent follow-up were supported by the Chinese Ministry of Health; the UK Medical Research Council, British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK; the World Bank loan to China; and the Canadian International Development Research Centre. We thank Gonghao Wang and Xinzhou He for their collaboration in the initial survey, the China DSP staff for their continuing effort and cooperation with long-term follow-up of study participants, and Peilong Liu, Chunming Chen, Richard Bumgarner, and Don de Savigny for help getting funding for the initial survey. Dr. Shiwei Liu was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Sino-British fellowship trust. We would also give our special thanks to Dr. Barbara Bolt at the University of South Carolina for assistance in revision of this manuscript.
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Supplemental Figure 1a
Spline curves for the multivariate-adjusted association of green tea consumption and CVD mortality across whole population, current smokers and never smokers. (TIFF 407 kb)
Supplemental Figure 1b
Spline curves for the multivariate-adjusted association of green tea consumption and CVD mortality across whole population, non-regular alcohol drinkers, moderate alcohol drinkers and heavy drinkers. (TIFF 408 kb)
Supplemental Figure 1c
Spline curves for the multivariate-adjusted association of green tea consumption and CVD mortality across whole population, urban residents and rural residents. (TIFF 401 kb)
Supplemental Figure 2a
Spline curves for the multivariate-adjusted association of green tea consumption and cancer mortality across whole population, current smokers and never smokers. (TIFF 411 kb)
Supplemental Figure 2b
Spline curves for the multivariate-adjusted association of green tea consumption and cancer mortality across whole population, non-regular alcohol drinkers, moderate alcohol drinkers and heavy drinkers. (TIFF 421 kb)
Supplemental Figure 2c
Spline curves for the multivariate-adjusted association of green tea consumption and cancer mortality across whole population, urban residents and rural residents. (TIFF 400 kb)
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Liu, J., Liu, S., Zhou, H. et al. Association of green tea consumption with mortality from all-cause, cardiovascular disease and cancer in a Chinese cohort of 165,000 adult men. Eur J Epidemiol 31, 853–865 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-016-0173-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10654-016-0173-3