NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Adults who do not like milk but want to keep their bones strong may have a new option: tea.

According to a study, men and women with a long-term tea habit had denser bones at three different skeletal sites, regardless of the type or amount of tea they consumed each day. Drinking tea regularly for at least 10 years, in fact, was estimated to boost bone mineral density by up to 5%.

The findings may have far-reaching public health implications, as tea is the most common drink consumed regularly by adults worldwide after water, according to the report in the May 13th issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"Any effect of tea on bone metabolism would represent a major public health concern," Dr. Chih-Hsing Wu from the National Cheng Kung University Hospital in Tainan, Taiwan and colleagues write.

They suspect that compounds in tea such as fluoride, phytoestrogens and a group of antioxidants known as flavonoids may work together to protect the bones. However, more research is needed into the protective effects of tea and to determine whether there is a threshold over which tea consumption is no longer beneficial.

The investigators interviewed more than 1,000 men and women aged 30 and older about their tea-drinking habits and divided adults into four groups. The study volunteers were also questioned about their exercise and smoking habits, use of calcium supplements and their consumption of coffee, milk and alcohol. The researchers measured the bone density at three skeletal sites.

Long-term habitual tea drinkers, or those who reported consuming tea once a week, had thicker bones at all sites measured, compared with non-habitual tea drinkers, the study found. Nearly half of those surveyed reported drinking tea daily for at least 10 years, according to the report.

Adults who drank black, oolong or green tea regularly for 6 to 10 years had higher bone density at their lumbar spine (the lower back). There was no benefit to drinking tea regularly for 1 to 5 years, however.

SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine 2002;162:1001-1006.

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