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Health Benefits of Tea
This is not intended to be a medical advice. Please consult your doctor before using any tea if you have any medical conditions or otherwise.
After water, tea is the most commonly consumed beverage in the world. This is good news, because tea offers important health benefits.
Some researchers say that tea combats heart disease, lowers cholesterol and staves off several types of cancer while protecting skin and strengthening bones and teeth.
Some of the most persuasive tea research links tea to lower risks of heart disease, stroke and high cholesterol. Numerous clinical trials as well as large population studies have found that regular tea drinkers are as much as 44 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack than the general population, and those who have had heart attacks are more likely to recover. Researchers at Boston University recently found that black tea appears to repair blood-vessel damage in people who have coronary-artery disease. And at the USDA, a just-completed study that controlled everything subjects ate and drank found that consistent tea-drinking significantly lowered LDL cholesterol (the bad kind) without decreasing helpful HDL cholesterol.
Green tea was the first tea studied for its cancer-fighting benefits. Recent research shows that any tea derived from the leaf of a warm-weather evergreen known as Camellia sinensis has similar cancer-fighting properties. This includes all green, black and red (oolong) teas. The leaves of this tree contain chemicals called polyphenols, which give tea its antioxidant properties. Herbal teas are not derived from this leaf and so do not have this particular health-promoting chemical.
The degree of processing determines whether a tea will be green, black or red. Green teas are the least processed. They are simply steamed quickly before packaging. Black and red teas are partially dried, crushed and fermented. The length of fermentation, which causes the leaves to blacken, determines whether the tea will be red or black. Regardless of the processing method, all teas contain polyphenols.
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