Can Green Tea Prevent Dementia?

Probably not.

Pictured: Tasty. Probably not lifesaving. Photo by Arseniy Kapran on Unsplash

I love green tea. There’s something about the floral flavour that you just can’t get with anything else. Whether it’s a high-quality loose leaf pot or simply a teabag, the stuff is just somehow uniquely relaxing and wonderful.

And, according to recent headlines, my green tea habits could save my life. Or at least my brain. News reports are proclaiming that green tea is not just a titillation for your taste-buds — it can apparently lower your risk of dementia as well.

I am just proud that I found a way to use the word titillation in a piece. Photo by Alisher Sharip on Unsplash

If you’ve been reading my work for a while, the next part will not surprise you. While the headlines are faithfully reporting the conclusions of a new scientific study, the data itself is extremely limited and there’s no good reason to believe that green tea can save your brain just yet.

Let’s look at the science.

Green Tea Data

The new paper is a large cross-sectional cohort study conducted in Japan. This is a type of study where researchers go out at a single point in time, and ask people a bunch of questions about their lives. They also usually do a range of medical tests, which in this case…