Drinking Tea Associated with Lower Ovarian Cancer Risk

Study finds that tea has a dose-dependent effect on woman's risk of ovarian cancer

TUESDAY, Dec. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Drinking tea daily is associated with a lower risk of ovarian cancer, according to a study published in the Dec. 12/26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. The association was dose-dependent, with greater tea consumption linked to more protection, but the link may also be due to a healthy lifestyle effect, the authors say.

Susanna C. Larsson, M.Sc., of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues surveyed 61,057 women aged 40 to 76 years about their food choices between 1987 and 1990, followed them through 2004 and identified 301 cases of ovarian cancer.

The researchers found a 46% lower risk of ovarian cancer in women who drank two or more cups of tea per day, a 24% lower risk in women who drank one cup per day and an 18% lower risk in women who drank less than one cup per day compared to women who didn't drink tea. They also found that each additional cup of tea per day was associated with an 18% lower risk of ovarian cancer.

"In this cohort, women with high tea consumption, compared with those who never or seldom consumed tea, seemed to be more health conscious in their behaviors in that they consumed more fruits and vegetables and were generally leaner," the authors write. "Hence, residual confounding by a healthy lifestyle should be considered as a potential explanation for the observed inverse association of tea consumption with the risk of ovarian cancer. Arguing against residual confounding, the results were similar in age-adjusted and multivariate models."

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