Black tea consumption and serum lipid profiles in Saudi women: a cross-sectional study in Saudi Arabia Iman A. Hakim a, *, Mohammed A. Alsaif b , Amal Aloud b , Mansour Alduwaihy c , Khalid Al-Rubeaan c , Abdul Rahman Al-Nuaim c , Omar S. Al-Attas c a Mel and Enid Zuckerman Arizona College of Public Health, 1515 N Campbell Ave., P.O. Box 245024, Tucson, AZ 85724, USA b Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA c Department of Biochemistry, College of Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Received 14 March 2003; received in revised form 28 July 2003; accepted 1 August 2003 Abstract The objective of this study was to examine the relation between black tea consumption and serum lipid concentrations using cross-sectional data on 1,764 Saudi women aged 30-70 years. Our data show that women who did drink more than 6 cups of tea per day ( 480 ml) had a significantly lower prevalence of high cholesterol (OR = 0.63), high triglycerides (OR = 0.56), high low-density lipoproteins (OR = 0.70), and high very low-density lipoproteins (OR = 0.61) than the non-tea drinkers. Moreover, increased consumption of black tea was significantly associated with decreased serum concentrations of total cholesterol (P  0.026) and triglycerides (P = 0.008) and with a decreased proportion of low and very low-density lipoprotein cholesterols (P = 0.015 and 0.011 respectively) after adjusting for risk factors. The results of this cross-sectional study do support the potential beneficial effects of black tea on serum lipids among Saudi women. © 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Black tea; Lipids; Women; Saudi Arabia; Prevention * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-520-626-5355; fax: +1-520-626-5348. E-mail address: ihakim@azcc.arizona.edu (I.A. Hakim). www.elsevier.com/locate/nutres Nutrition Research 23 (2003) 1515–1526 0271-5317/03/$ – see front matter © 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0271-5317(03)00176-3