Medical expert of the article
New publications
A love of tea reduces the risk of developing diabetes
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
Drinking four or more cups of tea a day reduces the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in middle-aged people, according to researchers from Germany's Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf.
The group of scientists was headed by Dr. Christian Herder, head of the Leibniz University Center for Diabetes Research. The experts studied the incidence of type 2 diabetes among the population of different European countries. It turned out that in the most "tea" countries (like Great Britain) this figure is 20% lower than the European average.
Different European countries have different attitudes towards tea. For example, in Spain they hardly drink it at all, and in the column "number of cups drunk per day" the researchers put zero. But after studying the diet of the British, the number four appeared here. It is this amount of tea that is the most effective in preventing type 2 diabetes.
Meanwhile, drinking one to three cups of tea has not been shown to reduce the risk of diabetes in midlife. So we either need to increase the amount of tea we drink or tackle other risk factors.
"The main risk factor for type 2 diabetes is obesity," says Christina Herder. "But dietary factors also play a significant role. We were interested in just one of them - tea consumption. It turned out that with its help the risk of type 2 diabetes can be reduced by 20%. Tea affects the processes of absorption and digestion of glucose, it protects beta cells from the action of free radicals. Perhaps this effect is due to the presence of polyphenols in tea."