Drinking Tea for Longer Reduces Risk of Ovarian Cancer

Drinking tea for lifetime can reduce the risk of ovarian cancer in women during their old age, reveals a new study.

A team of researchers from Curtin University in Perth, Australia, conducted a two-year study on 1,000 women with an average age of 59, living in China. While half of the group was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, the other half was not suffering from the disease.

The participants were questioned about their tea drinking habits, including the kind of tea they drank, when they started drinking and how often they drank, a report in Telegraph said.

Researchers found that women with no ovarian cancer had a habit of drinking tea from their early age, as compared to those women who were diagnosed with the illness. In both the groups of tea drinkers, women consuming tea for longer years were found to have more cups of tea in a day than those who had occasional cups of tea.

According to experts, 79 percent of women with no ovarian cancer were tea drinkers as compared to 51 percent of women who either have or had cancer. At least 40 percent of women not diagnosed with cancer drank more than four cups of tea in a day as against 22 percent of the other group, the report stated.

Tea is considered to be a safe drink, as the flavonoids present in it have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that help in fighting against diseases. "Tea is a safe and inexpensive beverage. Its consumption should be encouraged because of the potential benefit in preventing this common and deadly disease for women," study co-author Dr. Andy Lee told Telegraph.

The findings of the study are published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology.