A study by researchers at the Tohoku University School of Medicine has indicated that green tea consumption may be inversely related to blood cancer risk.

Published July 29 in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the study departed from the premise – posed by previous work – that components of green tea can have an anti-tumor effect on hematologic malignancies, or cancer of the blood, bone marrow and lymph nodes. The researchers sought to examine the relationship between green tea consumption and blood cancer in humans.

They culled data from a 1994 food questionnaire answered by 41,761 Japanese adults from 40 to 79 years old as part of the Ohsaki National Health Insurance Cohort Study. The participants examined had no history of cancer and were followed up on for nine years starting in 1995.

Using an equation that combined blood cancer incidence and cancer hazard ratios, the researchers found that, "green tea consumption was associated with a lower risk of hematologic malignancies," according to an abstract.