Tea Drinking Habits and Osteoporotic Hip/Femur Fractures: A Case-Control Study

Objective: To explore the relationship between tea drinking habits and osteoporotic hip/femur fractures.

Methods: Paired case-control method was used for face-to-face interviews from January 2010 to June 2014. Patients (n=435) with newly osteoporotic hip/femur fracture and 435 controls with the same gender and age (±3) were given questionnaire survey. The survey content included general situation, detailed tea drinking and other diet condition, health-related behavior and family history of fractures, etc.

Results: Single factor logistic analysis showed that the habit of drinking tea can significantly reduce the risk of hip/femur fracture. Cumulative year of tea drinking, the cumulative amount of tea and tea concentration (low dose group) have the maximum protection for fracture, while the high dose group is weaker in protection (trend test, P<0.05). After adjustment for age, energy, BMI, education degree, parents’ history of fracture, second hand smoke exposure, calcium supplements, and equivalent energy consumption of physical activity, etc, the above association still showed significant linear trend, but the associated strength was slightly reduced. But stratified analysis found that the effect of tea drinking was only statistically significant in men. And there were no statistically significant differences of people with different education degree.

Conclusions: Regular tea drinking can reduce the risk of osteoporotic hip/femur fractures in middle-aged and elderly men.