Although their diet overall was trash, the Gilmore Girls got one thing right—loads of coffee. We all enjoy a cup of joe, but let’s also show some love to tea. The research is clear that consumption of both drinks are associated with positive health outcomes. Being a lover of both, I did some research, trying to decide which is better for you. Well, it seems like the answer varies for women and men. From scientific observations, it may be better for women to drink more coffee than tea.
Gender and Beverage Ratio
In this study, van den Brandt investigated the health outcomes of 120,000 people over ten years based on how much coffee and tea they drank. Specifically, he looked at the influence of the drinks on cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and respiratory diseases. From the observations, it seems that women may benefit from drinking more coffee than tea, while men may benefit from drinking about equal amounts of the beverages.
Women who drank high amounts of coffee (more than 16 oz, or the equivalent to a Grande cup at Starbucks) had the lowest risk of death by any cause. Those who drank coffee 60-100% of the time, and tea 0-40% of the time fared the best with regard to death from the diseases studied. (In other words, if given the choice of one or the other on a day-to-day basis, women might want to drink coffee 4 to 7 days out of the week, and tea only 0 to 3 days out of the week).
With men, those who drank only coffee, no tea, had the highest cancer and cardiovascular mortality. However, because these men had lower mortality to other diseases like respiratory ones, it’s possible that coffee, in certain amounts, can be protective for men in some regards as well. Therefore, it’s suggested that men drink coffee 50-70% of the time and tea 30-50% of the time.
Factors to Consider
It’s important to note that the people included in this study were all 55-69 year-olds from The Netherlands. Even though not all of us fit into this demographic, the results of this study are valuable to consider in your life. Ladies, if you’re anything like the Gilmore Girls and love coffee, take it as a sign that you can continue to enjoy your coffee 60% or even 100% of the time!