Green tea consumption reduces the risk for cerebral aneurysm. - GreenMedInfo Summary
Habitual green tea consumption and risk of an aneurysmal rupture subarachnoid hemorrhage: a case-control study in Nagoya, Japan.
Eur J Epidemiol. 2006;21(5):367-71. Epub 2006 May 23. PMID: 16721635
BACKGROUND: Green tea, a popular beverage in Japan, contains many polyphenolic antioxidants, which might prevent cardiovascular disease. This study is designed to determine whether the consumption of green tea is associated with a reduced risk for subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) using a case-control study. METHODS: Incident SAH cases (n=201) were identified and individually matched by age (+/-2 years) and gender to hospital (n=201) and community controls (n=201) from April 1992 to March 1997. Habitual regular tea consumption was assessed with a structured questionnaire. Conditional logistic regression models were used to compute odds ratios adjusted for smoking, history of hypertension, and educational levels. RESULTS: The proportion of the consumption of one time or more of tea per day was higher in controls (70.9%) than in SAH patients (60.3%). Multivariate analyses showed that green tea consumption was inversely associated with SAH risk. Subjects consuming <1, and >or=1 time per day had adjusted ORs of 0.74 (CI: 0.34-1.58), and 0.56 (CI: 0.32-0.98) in comparison with non daily green tea drinkers, respectively (p-trend <0.001). CONCLUSION: In a case-control study in Japan, we found that habitual green tea consumption may be strongly associated with a reduced risk for SAH. Our findings will be useful in targeting individuals and populations for the primary prevention of SAH.