Vita gazette – New research reveals how coffee and tea can affect the risk of early death for adults with diabetes.

If you have type 2 diabetes, drinking more coffee, tea, or plain water may lower your risk of dying prematurely from any cause by about 25%, a new study found. According to a Harvard study,  black coffee, unsweetened tea, and plain water should be preferred instead of low-fat milk, fruit juice or artificially sweetened beverages. “Certain beverages are more beneficial than others, depending on which type of beverage you’re comparing,” said study author Qi Sun, an associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

However, drinking more sugar-sweetened beverages raised the risk of heart disease by 25% and the risk of dying from a heart attack or another cardiovascular event by 29%, the study said. Research has shown that cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death for people with type 2 diabetes.

The study, published in the journal BMJ, analysed the dietary data of nearly 15.500 adults diagnosed with type 2 diabetes who were part of the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up-Study in the United States.

Nearly 75% of the study respondents were women with an average age of 61. Every two to four years, for an average of 18 years, participants answered questions about consuming eight different types of beverages — artificially sweetened drinks, coffee, fruit juice, low-fat and whole milk, plain water, tea, and sugar-sweetened beverages.

Examples of sugar-sweetened drinks included caffeinated sodas, caffeine-free sodas, fruit punches, lemonades and other fruit drinks. More than one such drink a day was considered a high level of use; low consumption was less than one sugar-sweetened drink a month.

The study defined a high intake of coffee (caffeinated and decaffeinated) as four cups a day, tea as two cups a day, water as five glasses a day and low-fat milk as two glasses a day. A low amount for each beverage was less than one cup or glass a month.

The analysis showed that people who drank the most sugar-sweetened beverages had a 20% higher risk of death from any cause than those who consumed the least. In addition, the study found that dying from a cardiovascular-related event, such as a heart attack, rose by 29%.

Adults with type 2 diabetes who drink more coffee or tea lower their risk of heart disease, a new study said.

Consuming high amounts of coffee, tea, water and low-fat milk, on the other hand, was associated with lower mortality when compared with drinking a low dose, according to the study. There was a 26% lower risk of early death associated with drinking coffee, 21% for tea, 23% for plain water and 12% for low-fat milk.

Looking specifically at cardiovascular disease, the data showed that a higher intake of coffee was associated with an 18% reduced risk of heart disease. In addition, the study found that drinking low-fat milk reduced the chances of having heart issues by 12%.

There was good news for people who were die-hard drinkers of sugar-sweetened beverages before they were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The study found that the risk of early death dropped significantly when those sweet drinks were replaced with coffee or artificial no-calorie drinks after the diagnosis.

When sugar-sweetened and artificial no-calorie drinks were replaced with coffee, tea, plain water and low-fat milk, there was an even lower risk of heart disease and death from any cause.

There was no data on the types of tea (black, green, herbal or fruit) consumed during the studies and no information on whether participants added sugar to coffee or tea. Lack of data on this common additive means “comparative health effects of unsweetened and sweetened hot beverages remain unclear,” wrote Nita Forouhi, program leader and investigator of nutritional epidemiology at the UK’s University of Cambridge, in an accompanying editorial.

The study was observational, so the findings cannot be viewed through a lens of cause and effect. However, the authors “carried out the detailed, repeated collection of dietary data, followed-up participants for nearly two decades, applied comprehensive adjustments for confounding factors, and conducted 12 different sensitivity analyses,” said Forouhi, who was not involved in the study.

“The case for avoiding sugar-sweetened beverages is compelling,” she said. “Choice of beverage matters.”