Tea consumption is inversely associated with carotid plaques in women.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the relationship of tea consumption with common carotid artery intima-media thickness (CCA-IMT) and carotid plaques. METHODS AND RESULTS: The study was performed on 6597 subjects aged > or = 65 years, recruited in the French population for the Three-City Study. Atherosclerotic plaques in the extracranial carotid arteries and CCA-IMT were measured using a standardized protocol. Results were tested for replication in another, younger, French population sample (EVA-Study, 1123 subjects). In the Three-City Study, increasing daily tea consumption was associated with a lower prevalence of carotid plaques in women: 44.0%, 42.5%, and 33.7% in women drinking no tea, 1 to 2 cups/d, and > or = 3 cups/d (P=0.0001). This association was independent of age, center, major vascular risk factors, educational level, and dietary habits (adjOR=0.68[95%CI:0.54 to 0.86] for women drinking > or = 3 cups/d compared with none). There was no association of tea consumption with carotid plaques in men, or CCA-IMT in both genders. In the EVA-Study, carotid plaque frequency was 18.8%, 18.5%, and 8.9% in women drinking no tea, 1 to 2 cups/d, and > or = 3 cups/d (P=0.08). CONCLUSIONS: In a large sample of elderly community subjects we showed for the first time that carotid plaques were less frequent with increasing tea consumption in women.

Large artery wall thickening and its determinants under antihypertensive treatment: the IMT-INSIGHT study.

BACKGROUND: Calcium antagonists retard progression of intima-media thickness (IMT), but whether this retardation covers heterogeneous individual patient responses of IMT change is unknown. METHODS: Hypertensive patients treated for 4 years with nifedipine (n = 115) or coamilozide (n = 127) underwent ultrasound measurements of carotid IMT at baseline, 4 months later, and then every year. RESULTS: A histogram of individual slopes of IMT change (least square regression of IMT to time) during treatment identified three categories of slopes according to the 20th and 80th percentiles of distribution: lower, intermediate and higher percentiles of IMT slope; the proportion of categories of IMT slope differed between treatments (P < 0.05), due to a more frequent lower slope percentile under nifedipine (27%) than under coamilozide (14%); within-group differences between IMT slope categories were: (i) increased baseline IMT associated with lower IMT slope percentile in nifedipine group (P < 0.001) and (ii) more frequent carotid plaque associated with higher IMT slope percentile in both treatment groups (P < 0.05). Analysis of overall patients showed that IMT slope was associated negatively with nifedipine treatment (P < 0.01) and baseline IMT (P < 0.001) and positively with carotid plaque (P < 0.01); the relationship between IMT slope and baseline IMT was negative under nifedipine and flat under coamilozide, and the presence of plaque reset both relationships towards a higher IMT slope; the between-treatment difference in IMT slope was different between tertiles of baseline IMT (P = 0.016). CONCLUSIONS: The differences in IMT slope between nifedipine and coamilozide increase with increasing baseline IMT.