Tea has been used as a folk remedy for 5,000 years - to aid liver function, destroy typhoid germs, purify the body and preserve mental equilibrium - and now scientists are discovering it may have all those benefits and a whole lot more.
Studies presented at the Fourth International Scientific Symposium on Tea and Human Health, hosted by the US Department of Agriculture, this fall showed that tea can be key to a healthful diet.
"As a nutrition scientist, I consider tea as a healthy choice for three reasons: It meets hydration needs, it has no calories and it's really rich in phytonutrients [plant-based substances] that we know provide some human health benefits," said Jeffrey Blumberg, director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at Tufts University in Boston, in a telephone interview. "Tea has more of the catechins [a group of phytochemicals that act as antioxidants] than any food I am aware of. It is far and away the biggest, richest best source of those phytonutrients, and it's a pleasant, aromatic and flavorful beverage."
PHOTO: AP
We asked Blumberg, co-chairman of the symposium, some questions about tea and health:
CP: Are green, black and Oolong teas equally healthy?
JB: I don't know of any controlled trials comparing the different colors of tea, but all of them come from the same plant, the Camellia sinensis bush, and there is a huge overlap in what we are finding in different studies using different kinds of tea. Most of the observational studies use green tea in Japan and China and black tea in the US, India and Great Britain, but they all show the same results. One study looked at models of digestion and found that in the gut, bacteria and enzymes break down different kinds of tea so that when it gets to human tissue, they are all pretty much the same.
CP: Do you get the same health benefits from taking tea supplements?
JB: There are not very many studies on tea supplements, yet the few that we have suggest they are mimicking some of the cardio and cancer benefits established in tea studies. You are going to get some of the same benefits from tea extracts, but they are not the same thing. I have a slight bias as a nutrition scientist. Mother Nature put a lot of different beneficial chemicals and compounds in tea so why not take advantage of all of them? By definition, supplements are 80 to 90 percent concentrated polyphenol extracts, primarily EGCG, a powerful antioxidant, but as far as I know, theanine amino acid is not in extracts, and theanine is what helps you to focus your attention or relax.
CP: How much do you need to drink to get the health benefits of tea?
JB: From lots and lots of observational studies, it looks like four to five cups a day will put you in the highest 20 percent for protection against heart disease and stroke. Those who drink four cups or more consistently have the lowest risk of heart disease. There is definitely a dose/response relationship, but most people don't drink eight or 10 or 20 cups a day, so I have no data on that.
CP: Can you drink too much tea?
JB: In animals, you can give absolutely mammoth amounts without harm, and in 5,000 years of human history there is no evidence of harm in healthy human beings, within a tremendous range (of doses). Tea is caffeinated - it has about half as much caffeine as coffee - so if you are caffeine-sensitive, you might want to drink decaf, but there is no evidence to suggest any adverse consequence from tea consumption, in an otherwise healthful diet. (However, one recent report showed that a woman who drank 2 gallons, or roughly 8 liters, of strong tea every day for two years developed calcium deposits in her bones, Blumberg noted.)
Go to www.teausa.org for more information
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would