Is green tea consumption associated with reduced risk of death risk from all causes? To investigate this question, Tang et al. (2015) performed a meta-analysis of 5 studies, including 200,884 subjects. As shown below, drinking 2-3 cups (16-24 oz.) of green tea per day was associated with maximally decreased all-cause mortality risk, ~10%.
Post update (9/15/2019): Is there new data since this post was first published (2015) for the association between green tea with all-cause mortality risk? Two relatively large studies have been published since then. First, in a study of 164,681 men (average age, ~53y), consuming green tea (~15g/day) was associated with a maximally reduced risk of death from all causes (black lines; Liu et al. 2016). However, note that this data included both smokers and non-smokers. For non-smokers (green lines), all-cause mortality risk was maximally reduced even further at smaller doses, including ~ 6-10g of green tea/day:
In support of these data, never-smoking men and women (average age, ~52y) that drank more than 8.2g, and 3.3g, respectively, of green tea had an 11% reduced risk of all-cause mortality in Zhao et al. (2017).
The data is clear, drink green tea!
If you’re interested, please have a look at my book!
Reference
Liu J, Liu S, Zhou H, Hanson T, Yang L, Chen Z, Zhou M. Association of green tea consumption with mortality from all-cause, cardiovascular disease and cancer in a Chinese cohort of 165,000 adult men. Eur J Epidemiol. 2016 Sep;31(9):853-65.
Tang J, Zheng JS, Fang L, Jin Y, Cai W, Li D. Tea consumption and mortality of all cancers, CVD and all causes: a meta-analysis of eighteen prospective cohort studies. Br J Nutr. 2015 Jul 23:1-11.
Zhao LG, Li HL, Sun JW, Yang Y, Ma X, Shu XO, Zheng W, Xiang YB. Green tea consumption and cause-specific mortality: Results from two prospective cohort studies in China. J Epidemiol. 2017 Jan;27(1):36-41.
Michael Lustgarten 
We need to regularly drink green tea so that our body is replenished.
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Everyone should drink this tea!
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Impressive numbers! 0.6 RR is huge.
What’s consumption in gram?
Is this the amount of tax leaves used to be the tea?
Which will mean 5 gram ~= 3 1.5g teabags?
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That’s about right, Jazi, 5g = ~3 teabags. I buy loose leaf green tea and put it in a stainless steel ball, so I technically bag my own tea.
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Try powdered sencha if you haven’t, it is coarser than macha allowing it to dissolve in cold water and is intended to be “eaten”, making it super quick to prepare – throw a tsp into a glass with cold water, blend with an immersion blender.
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Matcha is concentrated green tea: 1 serving = 10 cups, so I’d be careful how much is used. Also, the published data is on green tea, not Matcha, so I’m trying to replicate that in my own green tea consumption. Lastly, loose leaf green tea is probably best because grinding and processing to yield powdered tea may destroy some of its nutrients.
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Pingback: Green Tea and Mortality Risk, Update! – Michael Lustgarten
Can we assume that people that tend to drink green tea are more health conscious anyways allowing them to avoid disease and mortality?
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Yes, that’s possible. I just looked for green tea RCTs, but Pubmed is down, so that will have to happen another time!
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