Drinking Tea (But Not Coffee) Might Actually Be Good for Your Bones

A cup of tea can do more than warm you up. A study published in the journal Nutrients in November found that, among older women, tea consumption was linked to higher bone mineral density, a measure of calcium and minerals in bones used to assess osteoporosis risk. On the other hand, coffee does not seem to have any positive effect on bone health.

So, should you start drinking more tea to strengthen your bones? Not necessarily, said Marilyn Tan, MD, FACE, FACP, an endocrinologist and double board-certified internal medicine physician at Stanford Medicine. But you “should be reassured that drinking tea is unlikely to have a negative effect on bone density,” she said.

Osteoporosis is a major public health problem, affecting approximately one in three women and one in five men over the age of 50 worldwide. The disease weakens bones, increasing the risk of fractures, and can lead to a significant decrease in quality of life and an increase in disability and death.

Older women are particularly at risk because bone loss accelerates after menopause.

To determine whether popular, antioxidant-rich beverages like tea and coffee could help protect against bone loss, researchers at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, followed nearly 10,000 women aged 65 and older for 10 years. They looked at tea and coffee consumption and measured bone mineral density at the hip and femoral neck, areas where low BMD is strongly linked to a higher risk of fractures.

After a decade, the team found that tea drinkers had higher hip BMD than non-tea drinkers. The more tea participants drank, the higher their associated hip BMD. Moderate coffee consumption – around two to three cups per day – does not appear to affect bone health, while drinking five cups or more was actually associated with lower BMD.

This finding supports previous research linking high coffee consumption to lower bone density and increased fracture risk.

Certain compounds in tea may help explain its potential role in bone health. Some teas are rich in antioxidants, which some evidence suggests may help prevent bone loss, said Theodore Strange, MD, chair of medicine at Northwell Health’s Staten Island University Hospital and a geriatric physician.

Tea also contains catechins, substances that have been shown to prevent certain types of cancer and may have bone-protective properties. “Catechins can promote osteoblast activity and inhibit osteoclast differentiation,” the process that destroys bone tissue, Tan said.

Still, experts caution that it’s too early to start drinking tea specifically to prevent osteoporosis. Although research has found associations, it cannot prove causation.

The study also had important limitations: It did not track the specific types of drinks participants drank, relied on self-reported data, and included primarily older white women in the United States, meaning the results may not be widely applicable, Strange noted. “More controlled studies need to be done to help minimize variable bias,” he said. Health.

For now, to protect your bones, it’s a good idea to focus on proven strategies: exercising regularly, eating a balanced diet rich in calcium and vitamin D, and limiting alcohol and tobacco, according to the Bone Health & Osteoporosis Foundation.