Tea & Your Health
If you are cold, tea will warm you, if you are depressed, it will cheer you, if you are excited, it will calm you - William Gladstone
Had the British statesman said it today he might have added the phrase: “If you are ill, it will heal you.”
Tea offers potential health benefits in a variety of ways in a variety of ways, including:
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Heart health:Research suggest that drinking 3 to 5 cups of tea per day can offer significant heart health benefits ranging from reducing heart attack risk to lowering Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, or "bad" cholesterol.
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Colon Cancer: A study found tea drinkers to have an approximately 42 percent reduced risk of colon cancer as compared to non-tea drinkers
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Healthy Teeth and Gums:The flavonoids in tea may inhibit the plaque-forming ability of oral bacteria, and the fluoride in tea may support healthy tooth enamel.
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Tea and Obesity: Preliminary research suggests that drinking tea may have effects on body weight, fat accumulation and insulin activity. Green tea extract was found to significantly increase 24-hour energy expenditure and fat oxidation in healthy men
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Cholestorol: Researchers from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) studied the effect of tea on mildly hypercholesterolemic adult participants. After three weeks, researchers found that five servings of Black Tea per day reduced LDL ("bad") cholesterol by 11.1 percent and total cholesterol (TC) by 6.5 percent compared to placebo beverages.
Nutrition isn’t just about what you eat -- it’s about what you drink. In the March 2006 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a panel of leading nutrition, obesity and hydration experts released the first-ever guidelines on what and how much consumers should drink as part of a healthy diet. This advice may help curb the excess calories that are consumed from liquid beverages in the U.S. diet.
Source: The Tea Association of the USA
