How much tea must I drink to counter the effect of eating a hot dog?

Our readers say just two cups of tea a day would be enough to overcome the negative effects of a twice-weekly hot dog habit.

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Having read several recent articles on nutrition and longevity, I wonder how many life-extending cups of tea I must drink to counter the life-shortening effect of eating a hot dog?

Tim Bond

Tea Advisory Panel, London, UK

Eating processed meat, such as hot dogs, is associated with increased mortality, possibly due to increased intake of salt, saturated fat or the additives used for curing.

A study in JAMA analysed data from six US studies involving a total of 29,682 participants, and found that higher intakes of processed meat were associated with a small increase in death from all causes. Those eating two servings of processed meat per week had a 3 per cent increase in their risk of early mortality, which equates to an absolute risk difference of 0.9 per cent over the course of 30 years.

While we don’t have a direct comparison with tea in this set of studies, we do have data from a UK Biobank study that involved 498,043 men and women aged between 40 and 69 years.

Over a period of 11 years, drinking two to three cups of black tea daily was linked to a 13 per cent reduced risk of early mortality compared with no tea drinking. This suggests that two cups of tea a day is sufficient to overcome the negative effects of a twice-weekly hot dog habit.

Flavonoids are the key components that make tea a healthy drink. They act as antioxidants, which control the damaging inflammatory effects of substances called free radicals. Both black and green teas have similar overall levels of flavonoids, albeit with different proportions of the various types.

Green tea is richest in a flavonoid called epigallocatechin-3-gallate, while black tea is richest in theaflavins and thearubigins. Herbal teas contain flavonoids too, but their concentrations and types will vary depending on the kind of plant.