Tea & Health: a digest of tea in the news
I have just realized that it’s been a long time since my last tea digest and I think it is time to keep you informed about the latest research findings on tea.
The news are all overwhelmingly positive for tea drinkers like yourself. Reading through a deluge of new research publications, one thing becomes instantly clear: it is hard to imagine anything healthier than the regular consumption of good quality (organic) tea!
Many findings apply to all kinds of tea, but often research is limited to a specific type of tea. Green tea is by far the most investigated type and the published results overshadow those of other teas by the sheer amount of studies. For this post, I have broken up the results by tea type.
Green Tea
A study by researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor found that green tea can help to relief pain and ease inflammation caused by rheumatoid arthritis. Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) is the active ingredient most studies focus on and in this research it was found to block the production of proteins and enzymes that infiltrate the joints and cause the cartilage to break down in people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. It was also found to substantially lower the production of other compounds which lead to joint inflammation.
Dr. Stephen Hsu, molecular/cell biologist at the Medical College of Georgia, and his colleagues found that the EGCG in green tea may prevent or delay the onset of type 1 diabetes. The study found the polyphenol EGCG to be very effective in the prevention of autoimmune diseases like type 1 diabetes and Sjogren’s syndrome, which basically cause the body to attack itself. These autoimmune disorders are one of the most common groups of diseases in the Western world and affect a large portion of the population. Read more about Dr. Hsu’s tea-related research here.
One of the biggest tea-related headlines comes from Dr Lindsay Brown of Brisbane’s Queensland University. His research results lead to attention grabbing headlines in the vein of “Drink three cups of green tea a day and you lose weight - even while you continue to eat junk food“. Dr. Brown studied the effect of tea on the health of rats fed with a “junk food” diet consisting of high fat, high sugar nutrition. A part of his test group received a mixture of green tea, spearmint, grape seed and olive leaf. This group quickly lost the excess fat accumulated through the junk food diet and the originally massively increased blood pressure returned to normal - even though the diet of junk food continued! Dr. Brown admits his own astonishment about these surprising findings but thinks the effect would be similar in humans.
More evidence about green tea’s ability to reduce the risk of heart disease is added to the large body of work by a recent study conducted by researchers from the Athens Medical School in Greece.
Green tea has repeatedly been shown to be associated with decreased incidents of different kinds of cancer. In a recent study, researchers from the University of Minnesota found green tea consumption lowered the risk of breast cancer.
New research from Germany found that EGCG is able to help prevent the development of chemicals in the brain which are associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
Black tea
A study from Japan found that black tea helped to lower cholesterol levels. High cholesterol levels have been associated with many diseases, specifically with cardiovascular disease. A reduction in total cholesterol usually leads to a risk reduction for the associated diseases.
Researchers from the University of Singapore conducted a comparative study on 2,500 people aged 55 and older and concluded that the people who drank no tea were more than twice as likely to develop dementia than those who drank two or three cups of black tea a day.
Oolong tea
In addition to the growing number of studies about oolong as a weight loss tea, Japanese scientists have recently found oolong tea to be effective as a treatment for eczema. More than two-thirds of the tested patients reported improvements within the first month of drinking 3 cups of oolong tea per day.
Tea (general)
A study published in General Dentistry earlier this year demonstrated that replacing soda drinks with tea will lead to a great reduction in tooth erosion due to loss of enamel. The study specifically emphasizes the consumption of freshly brewed tea as opposed to bottled tea, which often contains sweetener, lemon or milk and diminish the positive effect of tea.
Researchers from Sweden have demonstrated that the risk of ovarian cancer in women who drink at least 2 cups of tea per day was only half as high as that of those who drink no tea.
Well, after all these good news, I think it’s time to brew a nice cup of tea. If you’d like to order some tea, please visit our ordering page.
Tags [ tea | cancer | health | research | oolong | Alzheimer’s | teeth ]