中国科学院心理健康重点实验室知识库

Cognitive disorders have emerged as an important public health problem among older adults in China. Cohort studies investigating the relationship between tea consumption, various cognitive functions, and mental health have exhibited limited evidence and inconsistent findings. The present study aimed to explore the associations between these variables among community-dwelling Chinese older adults. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to compare scores on cognitive functions among green tea-consumers (GTC), other types of tea consumers (OTC), and non-tea-consumers (NTC), after adjusting for gender, education, residence, drinking, smoking, and hobbies. Thereafter, binary logistic regression analysis was applied to evaluate the role of tea consumption in differentiating between patients with mild cognitive impairments (MCI) and the controls without impairment. Among 972 participants, green tea consumption was significantly associated with improved performance on global cognitive function except for mental health assessments. In contrast to NTC, reduced risk of cognitive impairment was observed for both GTC and OTC after adjusting for demographic, lifestyle, and body health indicators. Furthermore, a significant correlation was found between tea consumption and improved cognitive performance. Thus, tea consumption played an important role in distinguishing older adults with mild cognitive impairment from older adults without cognitive impairment.