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Green Tea
and Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis, the thinning of the bones, affects
millions of people worldwide and is the cause of up to 75% of all
fractures in those over the age of 45. It’s a major cause of disability,
especially when it leads to a broken hip, which requires major surgery
and a long period of rehabilitation. Elderly people who suffer broken
hips are quite likely to wind up in nursing homes, sometimes for the
rest of their lives, and nearly 1 in 5 die within one year of the
fracture, typically because of complications.
We know that certain things can positively affect the
density of the bones, including weight-bearing exercise, adequate intake of
calcium, magnesium and vitamin D, moderate intake of protein, phosphorus and
caffeine, and abstention from smoking. But how about drinking green tea? Can
that do anything for your bones?
To
answer this question, researchers at the University of Tokyo interviewed 632
women age 60 or older at an osteoporosis outpatient clinic. They asked about
their dietary habits, measured their bone mineral densities at the lumbar spine,
and analyzed the results.1 They found that those with the habits of
green tea drinking, physical activity and alcohol ingestion had significantly
higher bone mineral densities than those who didn’t have these habits.
For a
study published in 2007 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition,
researchers measured the hip bone densities of 1,027 women age 70-85, then
followed them for 5 years.2 They found that total hip density was
2.8% greater in tea drinkers than non-tea drinkers, and that over a 4-year
period the tea drinkers lost an average of only 1.6% in hip bone density
compared to a 4% loss in the non-tea drinkers. The researchers concluded that,
“Tea drinking is associated with preservation of hip structure in elderly
women.”
1
Muraki S, Yamamoto S, Ishibashi H, et al. Diet and lifestyle associated with
increased bone mineral density: cross-sectional study of Japanese elderly women
at an osteoporosis outpatient clinic. J Orthop Sci 2007;12(4):317-20.
2Devine A, Hodgson JM, Dick IM, Prince RL. Tea
drinking is associated with benefits on bone density in older women. Am J
Clin Nutr 2007;86(4):1243-7.
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Nadine Taylor, M.S., R.D. presents
GreenTeaLibrary.com, the most
comprehensive collection of scientific information describing the
health benefits of green tea.
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