A Cup of Tea - An Elixir of Life

Benefits of Drinking Tea

A Cup of Hot Tea = A Cup of Good Health


Tea Consumption Linked to Numerous Body Benefits

A hot cup of tea may do more than relax you. Research shows tea consumption may help prevent a wide range of ailments.

The latest medical research is finding potential healing powers in this ancient beverage. Recent research, for instance, suggests drinking tea may help prevent everything from cavities to Parkinson's disease. And some studies indicate it may even save lives.

The benefits of tea consumption may extend throughout the body, experts believe. Here is a partial list of conditions some research has shown may be prevented or improved by drinking tea:

Arthritis: Research suggests that older women who are tea drinkers are 60 percent less likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than those who do not drink tea.

Bone Density: Drinking tea regularly for years may produce stronger bones. Those who drank tea on a regular basis for 10 or more years had higher-bone mineral density in their spines than those who had not.

Cancer: Green tea extracts were found to inhibit the growth of bladder cancer cells in the lab — while other studies suggest that drinking green tea protects against developing stomach and esophageal cancers.

• Sipping on a cup of hot tea may be a safeguard against cancer. Population studies have linked the consumption of tea with a reduction in risk for several types of cancer. Researchers speculate that the polyphenols in tea may inhibit certain mechanisms that promote cancer growth. Both green and black teas have been credited with cancer-inhibiting powers.

Flu: You may be able to boost your fight against the flu with black tea.

Your best defense against contracting the flu is to wash your hands often and get vaccinated against the influenza virus. Black tea may further bolster your efforts to stay healthy. In a recent study, people who gargled with a black tea extract solution twice per day showed a higher immunity to flu virus compared to the people who did not gargle with black tea.

Heart Disease: A recent study published in the journal Circulation found that drinking more than two cups of tea a day decreased the risk of death following a heart attack by 44 percent. Even less spirited tea drinkers were rewarded: Consuming just two cups a day decreased the risk of death by almost a third.

Tea is a rich source of the flavonoids quercetin, kaempferol, and myricetin, and research shows that high dietry intake of these compounds is associated with a reduced risk of fatal heart attacks. In one study, people who drank about a cup and a half of tea per day were almost 40% less likely to suffer a heart attack compared to tea abstainers.

High Blood Pressure: Tea lovers may be surprised to learn their beverage of choice touts yet another health benefit: blood pressure control. Drinking a half-cup of green or oolong tea per day reduced a person's risk of high blood pressure by almost 50% in a new study. People who drank at least two and a half cups per day reduced their risk even more. Their risk was reduced even if they had risk factors for high blood pressure, such as high sodium intake.

Parkinson's Disease: Tea consumption may be protective against developing this debilitating neurological disorder.

Oral Health: Rinsing with tea may prevent cavities and gum disease.

What's responsible for tea's many health benefits?

It's the complex brew of chemicals that make up this seemingly simple beverage.

"The big class of chemicals in tea are flavonoids — a natural class of antioxidants that are found in many natural plant-derived foods," explains Dr. Kenneth Mukamal, an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and author of the Circulation report. "In American diets, black tea represents probably the single biggest source of flavonoids."

Antioxidants rid the body of molecules called free radicals, which are side products of damage done to the body by pollution and the natural aging process. Free radicals in the body's cells are very unstable and tend to react negatively with other important molecules like DNA, causing malfunctions and injury on the cellular level. The destruction these free radicals produce may therefore pave the way for diseases like heart disease and cancer.

In the case of heart disease, antioxidants in tea may prevent death from second heart attack by helping blood vessels relax, thereby allowing blood to flow through more easily, potentially lowering blood pressure and reducing stress on the heart.

Antioxidants are thought to be behind the benefits of tea on dental health as well. A number of studies have suggested that rinsing with black or green tea may lead to better oral health.

"We have found that the [antioxidants] in black tea will suppress the growth of bacteria in the mouth that cause cavities and gum diseases," says Christine Wu, professor of periodontics at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry. "These will inhibit or interfere with the attachment of bacteria to the tooth surface."

A Prescription for Better Health?

There are lots of reasons why I enjoy a hot cup of tea: I love the aroma of various flavors of tea; holding onto a hot tea mug warms my hands on a cold winter morning; sipping tea in front of the fireplace is a great way to relax. And those are just the feel-good reasons. If you're not drinking tea yet, read up on these 10 ways tea does your body good and then see if you're ready to change your Starbucks order!

1. Tea contains antioxidants. Like the Rust-Oleum paint that keeps your outdoor furniture from rusting, tea's antioxidants protect your body from the ravages of aging and the effects of pollution.

2. Tea has less caffeine than coffee. Coffee usually has two to three times the caffeine of tea (unless you're a fan of Morning Thunder, which combines caffeine with mate, an herb that acts like caffeine in our body). An eight-ounce cup of coffee contains around 135 mg caffeine; tea contains only 30 to 40 mg per cup. If drinking coffee gives you the jitters, causes indigestion or headaches or interferes with sleep -- switch to tea.

3. Tea may reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke. Unwanted blood clots formed from cholesterol and blood platelets cause heart attack and stroke. Drinking tea may help keep your arteries smooth and clog-free, the same way a drain keeps your bathroom pipes clear. A 5.6-year study from the Netherlands found a 70 percent lower risk of fatal heart attack in people who drank at least two to three cups of black tea daily compared to non-tea drinkers.

4. Tea protects your bones. It's not just the milk added to tea that builds strong bones. One study that compared tea drinkers with non-drinkers, found that people who drank tea for 10 or more years had the strongest bones, even after adjusting for age, body weight, exercise, smoking and other risk factors. The authors suggest that this may be the work of tea's many beneficial phytochemicals.

5. Tea gives you a sweet smile. One look at the grimy grin of Austin Powers and you may not think drinking tea is good for your teeth, but think again. It's the sugar added to it that's likely to blame for England's bad dental record. Tea itself actually contains fluoride and tannins that may keep plaque at bay. So add unsweetened tea drinking to your daily dental routine of brushing and flossing for healthier teeth and gums.

6. Tea bolsters your immune defenses. Drinking tea may help your body's immune system fight off infection. When 21 volunteers drank either five cups of tea or coffee each day for four weeks, researchers saw higher immune system activity in the blood of the tea drinkers.

7. Tea protects against cancer. Thank the polyphenols, the antioxidants found in tea, once again for their cancer-fighting effects. While the overall research is inconclusive, there are enough studies that show the potential protective effects of drinking tea to make adding tea to your list of daily beverages.

8. Tea helps keep you hydrated. Caffeinated beverages, including tea, used to be on the list of beverages thatdidn't contribute to our daily fluid needs. Since caffeine is a diuretic and makes us pee more, the thought was that caffeinated beverages couldn't contribute to our overall fluid requirement. However, recent research has shown that the caffeine really doesn't matter -- tea and other caffeinated beverages definitely contribute to our fluid needs. The only time the caffeine becomes a problem as far as fluid is concerned is when you drink more than five or six cups of a caffeinated beverage at one time.

9. Tea is calorie-free. Tea doesn't have any calories, unless you add sweetener or milk. Consuming even 250 fewer calories per day can result in losing one pound per week. If you're looking for a satisfying, calorie-free beverage, tea is a top choice.

10. Tea increases your metabolism. Lots of people complain about a slow metabolic rate and their inability to lose weight. Green tea has been shown to actually increase metabolic rate so that you can burn 70 to 80 additional calories by drinking just five cups of green tea per day. Over a year's time you could lose eight pounds just by drinking green tea. Of course, taking a 15-minute walk every day will burn calories.

Tea drinkers insist that tea, not water, is the elixir of life. Its benefits could run into reams of pages.

A few here ----

The 1st cup caresses my lips.

The 2nd shatters my lonely sadness.

The 3rd sparks my intellect.

The 4th flushes out grievances.

The 5th purifies my every cell.

The 6th connects me with the divine.

The 7th prepares me for paradise.

— Lu Tong, Chinese poet, 798-835

Hold on. Aren’t Lu Tong’s seven cups of tea overdoing it? Not really. Ishi Khosla, clinical nutritionist and director, Whole Foods, says that even up to eight cups a day is fine. Typically, however, she recommends three to four cups, for that is enough to provide you the great benefits found in tea.

“It’s got antioxidants, and its goodness provides protection against heart disease and cancer. It also fights stomach infections and improves brain function, besides boosting the mind and destressing you,” she adds.

As You Like It

The good news is that you can take it any way — hot or iced, flavoured or plain, milky or black. “And both green and black tea aregood. The benefits are there in both,” adds Khosla. She says that herbal tea is good too, for you get the added health benefits of the herb that’s in it. But if you must have flavoured tea, make sure the flavours are natural. The perfect cup is one that has been brewed for no more than a couple of minutes, so don’t brew the same tea leaves over and again. Doing that kills the nutrients and the antioxidant properties.

Green and black tea come from the same tea plant, Camellia sinensis. The leaves are simply processed differently, and that is the only difference.

Packed With Antioxidants

Both forms of tea are high sources of antioxidants, with research suggesting that they have upto 10 times polyphenols, which are usually present in fruits and vegetables. Polyphenols are a type of antioxidants. These wonder nutrients scavenge for cell-damaging free radicals in the body and detoxify them.

In that sense, tea packs in more punch than a vitamin pill. It also lowers your cholesterol levels and speeds up the recovery of heart cells after an attack. Tea is good news for the middle-aged. Its antioxidants keep you looking radiant and young; it is hydrating, and so long as you don’t make it extra calorific with spoonfuls of sugar and dollops of cream, it could be the perfect substitute for water. Hydrated skins never look wrinkled, so that should be incentive enough to drink tea — especially if you are not the type to drink enough water in its natural form.

Tea also speeds up the body’s metabolic rate and for an average-weight person, drinking normal amounts of tea could burn off an extra 70 calories a day. That’s what 12 minutes of walking would usually achieve.

Another boon for the 40-plus — tea cuts the risk of rheumatoid arthritis and could even keep you safe from Alzheimer’s as it boosts brain functions. Most people can’t get out of bed without a hot cup of tea — which is really fine and is a good habit, as tea is a good friend for life. So, drink up!

Perfect For Children

Remember your mom giving you a cup of energising black tea when you had a stomach upset as a child? That’s because tea kills bacteria and germs. The good news is that tea is good for children even when they are not ill, so instead of colas and artificially-flavoured milk, give them a mix of tea and milk or iced tea, for why should the benefits of tea be denied to them? Ishi Khosla too suggests that “tea-flavoured milk,” is good for children. “They should, however, have their usual amount of milk, too,” she adds.

Green Tea

Is any other food or drink reported to have as many health benefits as green tea? The Chinese have known about the medicinal benefits of green tea since ancient times, using it to treat everything from headaches to depression. In her book Green Tea: The Natural Secret for a Healthier Life, Nadine Taylor states that green tea has been used as a medicine in China for at least 4,000 years.

Today, scientific research in both Asia and the west is providing hard evidence for the health benefits long associated with drinking green tea. For example, in 1994 the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the results of an epidemiological study indicating that drinking green tea reduced the risk of esophageal cancer in Chinese men and women by nearly sixty percent. University of Purdue researchers recently concluded that a compound in green tea inhibits the growth of cancer cells. There is also research indicating that drinking green tea lowers total cholesterol levels, as well as improving the ratio of good (HDL) cholesterol to bad (LDL) cholesterol.

To sum up, here are just a few medical conditions in which drinking green tea is reported to be helpful:

What makes green tea so special?

The secret of green tea lies in the fact it is rich in catechin polyphenols, particularly epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is a powerful anti-oxidant: besides inhibiting the growth of cancer cells, it kills cancer cells without harming healthy tissue. It has also been effective in lowering LDL cholesterol levels, and inhibiting the abnormal formation of blood clots. The latter takes on added importance when you consider that thrombosis (the formation of abnormal blood clots) is the leading cause of heart attacks and stroke.

Links are being made between the effects of drinking green tea and the "French Paradox." For years, researchers were puzzled by the fact that, despite consuming a diet rich in fat, the French have a lower incidence of heart disease than Americans. The answer was found to lie in red wine, which contains resveratrol, a polyphenol that limits the negative effects of smoking and a fatty diet. In a 1997 study, researchers from the University of Kansas determined that EGCG is twice as powerful as resveratrol, which may explain why the rate of heart disease among Japanese men is quite low, even though approximately seventy-five percent are smokers.

Why don't other Chinese teas have similar health-giving properties? Green, oolong, and black teas all come from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. What sets green tea apart is the way it is processed. Green tea leaves are steamed, which prevents the EGCG compound from being oxidized. By contrast, black and oolong tea leaves are made from fermented leaves, which results in the EGCG being converted into other compounds that are not nearly as effective in preventing and fighting various diseases.

Other Benefits

New evidence is emerging that green tea can even help dieters. In November, 1999, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published the results of a study at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. Researchers found that men who were given a combination of caffeine and green tea extract burned more calories than those given only caffeine or a placebo.

Green tea can even help prevent tooth decay! Just as its bacteria-destroying abilities can help prevent food poisoning, it can also kill the bacteria that causes dental plaque. Meanwhile, skin preparations containing green tea - from deodorants to creams - are starting to appear on the market.

Harmful Effects?

To date, the only negative side effect reported from drinking green tea is insomnia due to the fact that it contains caffeine. However, green tea contains less caffeine than coffee: there are approximately thirty to sixty mg. of caffeine in six - eight ounces of tea, compared to over one-hundred mg. in eight ounces of coffee.