In 2019, Peking University Medical Center followed up 500,000 Chinese in 10 years and found that people who drank more than 4 grams of strong tea per day actually increased their risk of cancer by 26%!
The results of a previous study on the association between tea drinking and cancer risk have attracted widespread attention and heated discussions in the society. Tea drinking has traditionally been viewed as a wholesome lifestyle, but some of the study's conclusions seem to challenge this.
Research data shows that among the respondents, the risk of cancer is significantly higher than that of the general population in those who regularly drink large amounts of tea for a long time. This result immediately provoked great controversy among the public, and some people were skeptical of it.
Skeptics argue that the study had some flaws and omissions in its design and execution, leading to one-sided and misleading conclusions.
Specifically, critics point out that the researchers failed to adequately consider the impact of other important lifestyle factors on the outcomes when analyzing the data. For example, whether you smoke, whether you drink regularly, and whether you are regularly exposed to harmful environments are all important variables that may affect the risk of cancer, but they have not received enough attention in this study.
Some scholars commented: "It is not enough to simply study the association between tea drinking behavior and cancer risk, and more potential interfering factors must be included in order to obtain more scientific and comprehensive conclusions." "
Other experts pointed out that the health effects of different types of tea should also be differentiated in research. After all, the degree of fermentation and content of different tea leaves are different, which may have different biological effects on the human body.
In addition, factors such as the regional distribution, age structure, and genetic background of the subject population were not fully paid attention to in this study. This makes the extrapolation and persuasiveness of the conclusions of the study greatly reduced.
In response to the doubts and controversies surrounding the results of the study, the research team responded in a timely manner and conducted in-depth analysis to clarify whether there was really a direct association between tea drinking and cancer risk.
In order to eliminate the external doubts, the researchers further optimized the study design and carried out detailed screening for high-risk cancer triggers such as smoking and alcohol consumption, which are generally recognized by the public.
In the new round of surveys, they included high-risk groups such as long-term smokers and alcoholics as a separate group and excluded them from the study sample, thus effectively avoiding the interference of these factors on statistics.
After re-statistics and analysis, the researchers found that after excluding high-risk factors such as smoking and drinking, there was no clear positive correlation between long-term heavy tea consumption and high incidence of cancer.
In other words, after excluding the recognized major cancer predisposing factors, the act of drinking tea does not appear to directly lead to a high incidence of cancer. The bias in the results of previous studies is likely due to statistical errors caused by ignoring these lifestyle factors.
Based on this finding, the research team finally concluded that moderate consumption of strong tea did not significantly increase the risk of cancer under normal dietary conditions. Some of the doubts and panic caused by the results of previous studies can be regarded as a relatively senseless "false alarm".
In their analysis, the researchers admit that it is indeed easy to draw inaccurate conclusions about the association between a particular lifestyle habit and a disease if it only considers one factor and ignores the influence of other underlying factors.
For example, some experts have emphasized the unhealthy nature of lard while ignoring the health hazards of more unhealthy lifestyles such as long-term sedentary inactivity of modern people. Such a one-sided research perspective is obviously one-sided and inadequate.
The exploration of human health problems is a systematic project, which requires a comprehensive and cautious view of various potential influencing factors, the use of scientific and rigorous methodology, and the elimination of interfering variables as much as possible in order to obtain credible research conclusions.
Fortunately, in the process of studying tea drinking and cancer risk, the researchers adhered to the scientific spirit, humbly accepted the doubts of the outside world, and corrected their own shortcomings in time, and finally presented a relatively objective and pertinent conclusion for the public.
