Coffee or tea?

TLDR; Drinking both is good. Here's how to do it to reduce the risk of stroke and dementia.

I’ve been drinking coffee for a long time, and I love it. I've been loving various forms of tea for even longer. But sometimes I wonder whether the health benefits of one outweigh the other. Should I drink more tea, or more coffee?

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

As the population ages, the number of older adults increases, and so too does the number of people who suffer from age-related dementia. In the U.S., the number of people aged ≥65 with Alzheimer’s disease is predicted to reach 7.2 million by 2025, which would be a 16% rise from 2021’s 6.2 million.

Stroke and dementia share some modifiable risk factors, and about 90 percent of strokes and 35 percent of dementia cases are preventable. And here's the thing: because a stroke doubles your risk of developing dementia, and since strokes are more common, more than a third of dementia cases could be avoided by preventing strokes.

The combination of these data, together with the limited efficacy of current drugs for treating dementia, has led to an increasing interest in lifestyle strategies to help prevent stroke and dementia.

Photo by Rumman Amin on Unsplash

Here's where tea and coffee come in. Coffee and tea are among the most widely consumed drinks in the world. Observational studies have reported inverse associations between coffee or tea and the incidence of stroke and dementia, but what if you drink both? Could that have a significant additional impact compared to drinking only one of either beverage?