Dementia impacts nearly 55 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with about 10 million new cases each year.
Yahoo Life’s recent article entitled “Drinking This Popular Beverage Slashes Dementia Risk, New Study Says” explains that this disease is characterized by memory loss, disability and increased dependence on others, with Alzheimer's disease accounting for nearly 60 to 70% of cases. Research shows that people develop dementia because of both genetic and environmental factors. However, there are preventative measures to take and a new study has investigated the protective effects of a beverage many of us consume daily.
A number of studies have investigated how certain foods, drinks and lifestyle factors may contribute to individual risk.
A 2017 study suggested that drinking diet soda every day (compared to less than once a week) could triple your risk of dementia.
The University of California, San Francisco also recently found that those who start abusing alcohol later in life may already have dementia. Their data showed that abusing alcohol after age 40 could be the first indication of a neurological condition, acting as a "presenting symptom"—also known as the time when a patient seeks out medical treatment.
If you enjoy a cup of green tea in the morning to start your day or a relaxing cup of Sleepytime to wind down in the evening, you'll be glad to know that this practice could also benefit your overall health.
A study published in Translational Psychiatry found that people who drank tea were 16% less likely to develop different forms of dementia when compared with those who didn’t drink tea. Moderate tea drinkers, or those who drank between one and six cups a day, had a 16 to 19% lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, as well as a 25 to 29% lower risk of developing vascular dementia.
Researchers also found a "U-shaped association" between cups of tea and dementia risk, and three cups a day showed the strongest protective effect against developing the disease. So, the ideal amount to stave off dementia risk was exactly three daily cups.
It is also interesting that the researchers didn’t see a big difference in dementia risk between those who drank more than six cups of tea and those who didn’t drink tea at all.
Reference: Yahoo Life (May 3, 2022) “Drinking This Popular Beverage Slashes Dementia Risk, New Study Says”
