Regular tea drinkers have “better-organized brain regions” than non-tea drinkers, finds a recent study led by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in collaboration with researchers from the University of Essex and University of Cambridge. Having the cells in your brain more organized is associated with healthy cognitive function. The team made this discovery by examining neuroimaging data of 36 older adults. The research has been published in the scientific journal Aging.
Team leader Assistant Professor Feng Lei, from the Department of Psychological Medicine at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, said:
Our results offer the first evidence of positive contribution of tea drinking to brain structure, and suggest that drinking tea regularly has a protective effect against age-related decline in brain organization.
Previous research has shown how tea intake is beneficial to human health, with positive effects including mood improvement and cardiovascular disease prevention. In 2017, there was a longitudinal study led by Asst Prof Feng which found that daily consumption of tea is so amazing it can actually reduce the risk of cognitive decline in older persons by 50%! This research inspired Asst Prof Lei and his team to further explore the effects of tea by focusing specifically on its effects on brain networks.
To do so, they recruited 36 elderly adults aged 60 and above and gathered data about their health, lifestyle, and psychological well-being. All the participants had to undergo neuropsychological tests and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The study was carried out over a span of 3 years – from 2015 to 2018.
After analyzing the participants’ cognitive performance and imaging results, the team found that “individuals who consumed either green tea, oolong tea, or black tea at least four times a week for about 25 years had brain regions that were interconnected in a more efficient way.” This makes for better cognitive performance because when the connections between brain regions are more structured, information processing can be performed more efficiently.
Asst Prof Lei said:
We have shown in our previous studies that tea drinkers had better cognitive function as compared to non-tea drinkers. Our current results relating to brain network indirectly support our previous findings by showing that the positive effects of regular tea drinking are the result of improved brain organization brought about by preventing disruption to inter-regional connections.
Next, Asst Prof Lei and his team plan to examine the effects of tea as well as the bio-active compounds in tea. They hope to find what it is exactly that has an inhibiting effect on cognitive decline. Such knowledge could lead to supplements that help with memory retention as we age, and much more.
