Objective: To determine the association between tea consumption and the risk of stroke.
Methods: We searched the PubMed database from January 1966 to March 2012 and reviewed reference lists of retrieved articles to identify relevant studies. Studies were included if they reported relative risks (RRs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of stroke with respect to three or more categories of tea consumption. A random-effects model was used to combine the study-specific risk estimates.
Results: Fourteen studies, consisting of 513,804 participants with a median follow-up of 11.5 years, were included in this meta-analysis. We observed a modest but statistically significant inverse association between tea consumption and risk of stroke. An increase of three cups/d in tea consumption was associated with a 13% decreased risk of stroke (RR 0.87; 95% CI, 0.81-0.94). The decreased risk of stroke with tea consumption was consistent among most subgroups. Based on the three studies that provided results for stroke subtypes, tea consumption was also inversely associated with the risk of ischemic stroke (RR 0.76; 95% CI, 0.69-0.84), but not cerebral hemorrhage (RR 0.96; 95% CI, 0.82-1.11) or subarachnoid hemorrhage (RR 0.81; 95% CI, 0.57-1.16).
Conclusions: Tea consumption is associated with a decreased risk of stroke, particularly ischemic stroke. More well-designed, rigorously conducted studies are needed in order to make confident conclusions about the association between tea consumption and stroke subtypes.