Coffee, tea may curb stroke risk

Drinking coffee and tea may reduce the risk of stroke in male smokers caused by a blockage, a new study hints.

"Coffee and tea consumption could potentially reduce the risk of stroke because these beverages have antioxidant properties," Dr. Susanna C. Larsson, of the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues explain in the journal Stroke.

Larsson's team examined ties between consumption of coffee and tea and risk of different types of stroke - such as cerebral hemorrhage and subarachnoid hemorrhage, both of which are strokes caused by bleeding in the brain, and cerebral infarction, which is a more common type of stroke caused by blockage of an artery that supplies blood to the brain. This type of stroke is often caused by hardening of the arteries.