Drinking tea is good for your brain, according to a new study

Here are some good news for devoteas (sorry): drinking tea might be good for your brain, according to a new study by scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS). Specifically, your tea drinking habits may be beneficial to your brain as you get older, avoiding some of the typical signs of age-related decline. Does anyone want to put the kettle?

A team led by Dr. Feng Lei, an assistant professor in the NUS Yong Loo Lin's Department of Psychological Medicine School of Medicine, studied the lifestyle, general health and psychological well-being of 36 participants over 60 years old. . The participants also underwent MRI ("magnetic resonance imaging", to be precise) and took part in neuropsychological tests.

The results, published in the journal Agingwill satisfy all those who spend their days of work waiting for a colleague to cook: participants who drink green tea, oolong tea or black tea at least four times a week, for about 25 years, have been better connected regions of the brain (more on that later). Of course, this is not an immediate health benefit – and it requires a fairly intensive time commitment – but it seems like a quarter of a century spent drinking tea is worth a quarter of a century spent wisely.

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So why is it beneficial for your brain regions to be connected "more efficiently"? Dr. Feng explains, "Take the analogy of road traffic as an example – consider brain regions as destinations, while connections between brain regions are roads." When a road system is better organized, vehicle and passenger traffic is more efficient and effective, and when connections between brain regions are more structured, information processing can be done more efficiently. "

"We had shown in our previous studies that tea drinkers had better cognitive function compared to non-tea drinkers," he continued. "Our current findings regarding the brain network indirectly corroborate our earlier findings by showing that the positive effects of regular tea consumption resulted from a better brain organization resulting from the prevention of disruption of interregional connections."

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The benefits of tea on health are not limited to the brain. according to Harvard Health, green tea contains high levels of chemicals called polyphenols; Black tea and red tea also contain polyphenols, but at lower levels. Polyphenols are antioxidants that neutralize problematic chemicals known as oxidants and that limit, among other things, the risk of cardiovascular disease. (A problem: according to Harvard, the beneficial impact of antioxidants on health has been shown only by studies on rodents and specimens.)

Then come the polyphenols that regulate blood sugar, which could reduce the risk of diabetes. Several Harvard studies have associated tea consumption with a lower risk of developing diabetes, although it is not yet possible to claim a direct causal link between the two. Dr. Qi Sun, an assistant professor in the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health, said: "The consumption of tea, especially green tea, may not be the silver bullet. but it can be integrated with a healthy diet consisting of whole grains, fish, fruits and vegetables and less red meat and processed. "I'll ask again: does anyone put the kettle?