Recent Australian research has found that consuming two cups per day of green tea could decrease an individual’s risk of suffering stroke by as much as 50 per cent.

Each year, stroke is responsible for over five million deaths worldwide, and of these, ischemic stroke (stroke caused by a clot that cuts off blood to the brain) accounts for about 70 per cent.

Even one cup a day appears to reduce risk of ischemic stroke, according to researcher Professor Colin Binns, of the School of Public Health at Curtin University in Western Australia. If you’re really keen on the brew then drinking more of it can increase the risk reduction to 60 per cent, but if the green stuff isn’t your cup of tea (sorry), then everyday black tea also has similar, though lesser, properties.

‘We can say if you are going to drink a beverage, then tea is the healthier option. We believe other kinds of tea are half as effective as green tea in reducing risk’ said Binns.

The Curtin University researchers and academics from three Chinese hospitals monitored the consumption of green tea by ischemic stroke patients in Guangdong province in southern China. Four hundred stroke patients were interviewed, and the data compared with that gleaned from 400 healthy individuals in the same area. Guangdong was selected for the study because the diet of the population has remained largely the same for the past twenty years and the drinking of green tea is common practise, providing the researchers with necessary consistent factors.

Binns said that because the Western diet changes so much (comparing a shopping basket of today with one from 1989 could be an interesting task) conducting the study in Australia would be difficult, but the researchers believe that the benefits found in green tea would also apply within a western diet.