Magic Brew for Your Heart

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From:

http://www.iwon.com/home/health/health_article/0,11720,506892|04-26-2002::06

:00,00.html

Magic Brew for Your Heart

Another study finds tea's flavonoids prevent blood vessel damage

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthScoutNews Reporter

THURSDAY, April 25 (HealthScoutNews) -- Yet another study has found drinking

tea is good for your heart, particularly in reducing death from heart

attacks.

Getting the credit, once again, are tea's flavonoids -- antioxidants that

help prevent blood vessel damage.

In this latest study, conducted in the Netherlands, heavy tea drinkers who

indulged in more than three cups of black tea a day had about half the risk

of a heart attack of those who didn't sip the stuff. And when the heavy tea

drinkers did have a heart attack, they had less than a third the risk of

dying from it, compared to those who didn't drink tea.

For the study, published in the May issue of the American Journal of

Clinical Nutrition, researchers evaluated 4,807 men and women participating

in the Rotterdam Study, an ongoing evaluation of Dutch residents over age

55.

" The strongest association was with tea and prevention of cardiac death, not

tea and prevention of heart attacks, " says Lenore J. Launer, an investigator

at the National Institute on Aging who worked with the Netherlands research

team. During the follow-up period of 5.5 years, on average, there were 146

reported heart attacks, and 30 were fatal.

The tea's flavonoids, which are substances that act as antioxidants to undo

cell damage, are thought to help preserve cardiovascular health by

preventing excess blood vessel damage, even in those with heart disease.

Based on this study, Launer wouldn't recommend people change their

tea-drinking habits.

" It's another study that reinforces the idea that diet can contribute to

heart disease, " she says. She hopes the study will encourage people to

evaluate their diet, along with other lifestyle issues, such as lack of

exercise, to reduce their risk of heart attack.

Another expert also stops short of recommending any change in tea-drinking

habits based on this latest research.

" This study seems to me very preliminary, " says Dr. Zi-Jian Xu, an attending

cardiologist at Santa -UCLA Medical Center.

Based on the study, he would not recommend people who don't drink tea --

healthy hearts or not -- start drinking just to reduce heart attack risk.

Nor would he advise those who already drink tea and are having no ill

effects to give it up. More studies need to be done, he adds.

Since the early 90s, several studies have focused on tea drinking and heart

health, Launer says, and the conclusions have sometimes been contradictory.

Initial studies finding benefits from a food or vitamin are sometimes

followed by studies that show no benefit or even adverse effects, Xu adds.

And, he notes, there were initial studies that found vitamin E supplements

were good for the heart, but subsequent studies found no benefit or even

adverse effects.

Teas that contain caffeine can also lead to problems for some people, he

adds, sometimes causing palpitations or abnormal rhythms.