Health Benefits of Tea
by Dean Unger
Once considered sit-down beverages, given our upwardly mobile culture and the birth of Starbucks and Tim Horton's, tea and coffee have become the perfect soothing beverage for life on the road. But especially where tea is concerned, research over the last three decades has come full circle on the many health benefits the drink possesses.
Tea has always been revered in China for its curative properties. When it was first imported to Europe, the focus was on trade value and what price could be charged at the till. This perspective on tea as a commodity detracted somewhat from the notion that it was actually good for you. Still, despite obtuse western thinking, the benefits of drinking tea far outweighed the benefits of good commerce.
Today tea is the second most consumed drink world-wide, second only to water. What scientists have discovered is a chemical basis for the curative properties of tea and its effects on the body.
Tea is essentially a natural pharmacy of elements that combine to increase alertness, reduce fatigue, and has a pronounced effect upon lifestyle ailments including heart disease, cancer, and obesity.
Drinking an average of four to five cups of tea a day has been shown to:
• Stimulate up to a 4% increase in energy expenditure over a twenty-four hour period; with a maintained balanced diet, tea could also help with increased weight loss.
• Lower risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease by up to 26% over those who drink less than one cup per day.
• Improve antioxidant functioning, therefore may help in preventing some forms of cancer.
• Decrease the risk of ovarian cancer in women by up to 46% over women who don’t drink tea at all.
• Reduce the risk of hypertension by 46% with a meager 120 ml – approx. half a cup or more per day.
Why Tea is Good For You?
Tea contains polyphenols, flavonoids, and catechins, all potent antioxidants that help to neutralize free radicals. Free radicals damage healthy cells and are suspect in oxidative stress, a degenerative condition that may lead to heart disease and cancer.
Many studies have shown that polyphenols contribute to the prevention of blood clotting, and may lower cholesterol levels by inhibiting absorption of cholesterol into the digestive tract. Polyphenols in tea can also neutralize enzymes that feed cancerous tumors.
Flavonoids are natural compounds that generate the production of platelets, and work hand-in-hand with polyphenols in preventing blood clots. They also double as antioxidants, thus countering the effects of free radicals which are essentially by-products of normal metabolism in the blood-stream. Free radicals can also be caused from exposure to pollution, tobacco smoke, certain drugs and pesticides.
Though the highest concentrations are found in green tea, catechins, another form of antioxidant, are also present in white, black and Oolong varieties as well. Extensive studies show that catechins reduce arterial plaque, carcinogenesis, and have a profound effect on reducing stroke, heart failure, cancer and diabetes.
The Chinese symbol for tea is comprised of three parts: its foundation represents the substance "wood" or “mu”; it's middle is the symbol for "people" or “ren”; and at the top of the symbol is found "grass". All three combine to represent the harmony between human beings and nature - a fitting commentary that speaks to the efficacy of ancient wisdom and the health benefits of tea.
