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Singapore, January 18, 2008 - A new study between key collaborators, the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) showed for the first time that drinking black tea, but not green tea, reduced the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease (PD) among the Chinese population in Singapore. The findings, which are published in the on-line issue of American Journal of Epidemiology in December 2007, suggest that black tea may exhibit neuroprotective effects on Parkinson’s disease. The findings were also presented and won the second prize for Best Research Presentation Award at the 1st Asian and Oceanian Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Congress (AOPMC) that was held in Singapore during October 2007.
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive and degenerative neurological disease for which there is currently no cure. It affects all cultures and races, with an estimated worldwide prevalence of 6.3 million people. The exact cause of the disease remains unknown.
There has always been a lack of data from Asian populations on dietary and lifestyle factors associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Between 1993 and 2005, the researchers examined these factors in relation to Parkinson’s disease in the Singapore Chinese Health Study, a cohort of 63,257 Chinese men and women. Data was collected through in-person interviews using structured questionnaires. All 157 incident PD cases were identified either through follow-up interviews or via linkage with hospital databases.
The results of this first community-based study of Parkinson’s disease risk factors in an Asian population showed that individuals who had a higher dietary intake of caffeine were less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease. This has been shown in several large population-based studies in USA and Europe. A novel finding in this paper was that black tea intake also reduced the risk for developing Parkinson’s disease. This inverse association between black tea and Parkinson’s disease was found to be unrelated to the caffeine content in black tea, suggesting that its protective effects are mediated through mechanisms other then caffeine. Green tea, in contrast, did not show any significant protective effects on Parkinson’s disease in the study. The researchers intend to follow-up this cohort further to identify other factors that may affect an individual’s risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, as well as understand the mechanism of black tea’s protective effect on Parkinson’s disease.
"We had observed an inverse association between consumption of black tea and the risk of Parkinson’s disease in the Chinese population residing in Singapore. Our research is a very promising first step to identify dietary and lifestyle factors related to Parkinson’s disease in an Asian context. More studies will be needed before we can firmly establish the protective effect of black tea on PD and understand its underlying mechanism. Such research will enable NNI’s group of researchers to develop strategies to prevent or reduce the progression of this debilitating neurodegenerative condition" said Dr Louis Tan, senior consultant neurologist at NNI-TTSH who is leading the study together with Dr Koh Woon Puay, Assistant Professor from Community, Occupational and Family Medicine Department, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.
On the uniqueness of the study, Dr Koh Woon Puay said "To our knowledge, this is the first prospective cohort study of Parkinson Disease risk factors in a non-white population living in Asia. Singapore Chinese are well suited for the study of coffee, green tea and black tea consumption and health outcomes since all three types of beverages possess divergent intake profiles in this population. Other strengths of the study are its population-based design and the collection of data on tea-drinking prior to disease diagnosis." | |
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