Tea 'to join health
menu'
Tea
could soon join fruit and vegetables on the
list of must-have health foods. Recent studies
have suggested the traditional cuppa protects
against a range of conditions including cancer,
heart disease and Parkinson's. But scientists
in the United States now believe that the health
benefits are so great that everyone should be
urged to drink tea.
|
"The body of evidence has been growing
substantially" |
|
William GormanUK Tea
Council |
Experts believe antioxidants in tea help to
repair cells in the body which have been damaged
by sunlight, chemicals, stress and many foods.
Damaged cells can lead to cancer and heart disease
as well as a host of other serious conditions.
Fresh evidence
Scientists made their case at a meeting in Washington
organised by the US Department of Agriculture,
the American Cancer Society and the Tea Council.
Officials from the Department of Agriculture
outlined findings from a study which suggested
tea reduces the risk of heart disease by lowering
cholesterol.
Joseph Judd, acting director of the department's
Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center in
Maryland, tested eight men and eight women who
agreed, for a period of three weeks at a time,
to eat and drink only what they were given at
the Beltsville lab.
"We gave them a beverage that mimicked
tea - water flavoured like tea," he said.
For a second three-week period the same volunteers
got five cups a day of tea to drink.
"We found that their blood lipids, when
they drank tea compared to the placebo beverage,
had up to 10 % lowering of low density lipoprotein,
the 'bad' cholesterol," Mr Judd said.
Overall, total cholesterol was lowered 6 %
on average over the three weeks, his team found.
"There was no effect on 'good' cholesterol,"
he added. "HDL remained constant."
Help for smokers
In another study, researchers at the University
of Arizona tested 140 smokers to see if drinking
tea reduces the risks of cancer.
They examined whether tea repaired damage to
cells caused by smoking. In particular, they
looked at the affects on a chemical called 8-OhDG,
which is found in urine and is believe to cause
cell damage.
For four months, volunteers drank either green
tea, black tea or water.
"They were asked to eat whatever they
were eating and just add tea to their diet,"
said Dr Iman Hakim, who headed the study. Researchers
tested the participants' urine for levels of
8-OHdG.
"What we found was a 25% decrease in
the green tea group," she said.
However, no changes were seen in the people
who drank black tea or water.
"We think green tea, in our group of smokers,
is associated with a reduction of oxidative
stress in their urine," Dr Hakim said.
The meeting was told that efforts should be
made to encourage Americans to drink more tea.
More than 135 million cups of tea are drunk
in Britain every day but so far Americans have
failed to convert from their beloved coffee.
William Gorman, executive director of the UK's
Tea Council which represents the tea industry,
is at the Washington meeting.
He said the research being presented there
was "very interesting".
"The body of evidence has been growing
substantially. There is a lot of strong scientific
information being presented here," he told
BBC News Online.
Mr Gorman added: "The tea industry has
always been very cautious about presenting the
science around tea but certainly the organisations
behind this meeting are very confident in the
data."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2280353.stm
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