Eat for Health: Coffee or Tea?

By Brandie Umar - Executive Director of Content | June 21st, 2010

Are you a tea or a coffee drinker? Do you know which is better for your health?

After years of being told that caffeinated drinks lead to health problems, recent studies suggest that drinking moderate ammounts of both tea and coffee could actually offer health benefits, protecting against mouth and neck cancer and heart disease.

Caffeine and coffee in particular has long been associated with higher levels of cholesterol which can lead to heart disease. This link between caffeine and cholesterol led people to believe that coffee and tea are bad for heart health.

A 13 year study by reseachers in the Netherlands has found that people who consumed up to tea or coffee on a daily basis, in contrast to being less healthy actually had a reduced risk of developing heart disease. Coffee drinkers, consuming up to 4 cups a day reduced their risk of cardiac problems by at least 20%, while tea drinkers lowered their risk of heart disease by as much as 45%.

Does this mean coffee and tea are good for your heart?

Drinking caffeinated coffee and tea in excess - more than 4 cups of coffee, or 6 cups of caffinated tea - does raise the risk of developing high cholesterol, supporting the belief that caffeine can lead to heart problems. However, in moderation it would seem tea and coffee do not have any negative effect on heart health and do lower heart disease risks.

The link between coffee and reduced risk of certain cancers was made by a study between the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology (INHANCE) consortium. The study looked at a cross section of 12,000 patients - split between those already with cancer and those cancer free and overall healthy. The study found that drinking 4 cups of coffee a day reduced the risk of oral cancers and cancer in the neck by almost 40%.

A positive link between cancer and coffee was also made in 2009, when it was discovered that regularly drinking coffee could lower the risk of prostate cancer by a staggering 60%.

Caffeine in excess is as bad for your health as excess ammounts of salt or sugar, but it would seem - in moderation - coffee and tea can offer potitive health benefits.

What about the idea that tea is better for you than coffee?

The study by Dutch researchers indeed suggests that tea is slightly better for your health than coffee - however if you look at the ammount consumed you'll see that drinking more then 6 cups of tea had the same negative effect as more than 4 cups of coffee. As tea is less caffeinated than coffee, fewer cups of coffee are the equivalent of more cups of tea. Whatever your choice of caffeine fix, it would seem that within moderation, your health will not suffer and your heart may benefit.

Sources:

American Association for Cancer Research

Journal of the American Heart Association