Tea and Coffee Good for the Heart 喝茶和咖啡 – 对心脏有益

By Kate Ferrand

媒体英语会带大家一起学习BBC撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。

Background: 背景：

荷兰的一项研究表明，在对4万名每天都喝几杯茶或咖啡的人群进行了13年的跟踪后，专家们发现这一人群患心脏疾病的可能性较小。

The study in the journal of the American Heart Association could make pleasant reading for those who like a regular cup of tea.

It found that those who drank more than six cups of tea a day were a third less likely to develop heart problems than those who drank none.

Coffee drinkers also fared well, but only up to a point.

Those who consumed between two and four cups a day had a twenty percent lower risk of heart disease than those who drank little.

But the protective effects stopped with very heavy consumption.

The Dutch do not add milk to their tea as liberally as the British, and the jury's still out as to whether milk reduces the effectiveness of flavonoids, which are thought to be the key ingredient.

The British Heart Foundation welcomed the study, but warned that drinking all your tea while slouched on the couch was unlikely to offer many health benefits.