Can tea heal?
Whether we drink it for its calming, restorative qualities or for targeted health benefits, there’s no denying the allure of tea. Photo by Liz Setterfield
By Janet Arnold-Grych
There is something almost magical about tea. Weaving your fingers around a cup of your favorite blend and inhaling the exotic fragrances of China or India can calm and warm you to your very core, even on the coldest of Wisconsin days. An all-natural plant-based drink, tea has been used for centuries to warm and to soothe, and also to heal. Generations of tea drinkers across many cultures have ascribed a variety of powers to it, and science is just beginning to test those beliefs. We seem to intuitively know that tea is a good thing, but can it really make us healthier?
Tea is regarded as the most widely consumed beverage on earth aside from water. But while grocery store shelves and home pantries may be lined with boxes carrying a “tea” label, there is only one plant that officially produces tea: Camellia sinensis. This plant contains the buds and leaves that give us white, green, pu-erh, oolong and black teas. All other “teas” such as ginger, chamomile and roobis are categorized as tisanes (tea-ZAHNS), a French word for herbal infusions.
One plant produces these different types of tea primarily through variations in how the leaves are handled after picking. The tea created depends on the growing regions/conditions of Camellia sinenis, as well as the addition of herbs, spices and oils to the base tea.
Jean Vitrano, a certified Level I and Level II tea specialist, owner of the former Brew City Tea in Milwaukee and tea blogger, extols the holistic benefits of tea. “Tea is the drink of Zen,” says Vitrano. “Quality tea is surrounded in tradition; taking time to prepare the water, accurate steeping time, leading up to that special moment right before the first sip. Tea through time and custom is a beverage that encourages us to sit and enjoy rather than rush and gulp.”
The richness of tea is evident at the Anaba Tea Room in Shorewood. Savoring their menu of nearly 80 teas and tisanes is like reading descriptions of fine wines — “sweet, robust and malty,” “high grown notes of lilac and wild orchid,” and “pleasantly tart, naturally fruity and wonderfully aromatic.”
General manager and chef Gregg Des Rosier says he’s seen Milwaukeeans’ interest in tea grow and change over the last five years, particularly as more health claims are made. “People wanted more fruit teas before,” says Des Rosier. “Now we see people gravitate more toward straight teas — green, oolongs, pu-erhs, a lot of times for health. Sometimes people read an article about the health benefits of some teas and they will come in asking about them — pu-erhs for digestion, oolongs for curbing appetite and green which is largely considered to be high in anti-oxidants and a good cancer suppressive.”
And science says …
Much of the scientific research on the healthy aspects of tea has centered on green and black teas. Black tea is the most commonly consumed tea around the globe and green tea is widely enjoyed and studied in Asia. Tea leaves contain the enzyme polyphenol oxidase and flavonoids called catechins. When tea leaves are broken, the enzyme and the catechins interact, forming catechin compounds. This is called oxidation or fermentation, and is stopped by steaming/firing the leaves. White and green teas undergo little oxidation while black teas are fully oxidized. Oolong and pu-erh are allowed to oxidize for intermediate periods of time.
Scientists are interested in tea’s catechins because of their antioxidant properties. Antioxidants counter the effects of the free radicals (which cause cell damage and have been linked to everything from arthritis to cancer). In the lab, teas have been found to provide protection against many different types of illnesses including cancer, type 1 diabetes and hepatitis.
Outside of the laboratory, however, most of the research studies have either been done with very small numbers, or been population-based and centered in Asia. Such epidemiological studies are influenced by many factors including genetics, culture and environment, making extrapolations to other cultures difficult.
For every study that finds a benefit to tea, there seems to be another that negates it. “There are thousands of research articles written on tea that have yielded varying results,” says Ghazal Sheei, marketing director for Milwaukee’s Rishi Tea, which offers more than 200 loose leaf teas, herbs and botanical blends to consumers and retail outlets like Anaba. “It’s important to keep in mind the many variables related to the research results such as tea type, freshness of the tea, who the research was funded by, etc. We stand by the belief that good tea is good for you.”
The National Institutes of Health is not ready to verify those benefits. It has assigned a “C” grade, which indicates unclear scientific consensus, to all the following conditions with regard to tea consumption: anxiety, arthritis, asthma, cancer, cardiovascular conditions, common cold prevention, dental cavity prevention, diabetes, fertility, high cholesterol, hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, menopause symptoms, mental performance/alertness (tea contains caffeine), photoprotection, viral infection, and weight loss.
While it may not yet be possible to definitively state tea’s role in good health, recent studies continue to offer provocative findings.
- Cancer: Digestive System, Prostate. In 2009, Dr. Katja Boehm of the Unconventional and Complementary Methods in Oncology Study Group in Nuremberg, Germany shared the results of her group’s review of 51 studies on green tea (47 done in Asia). Overall, the group found the body of studies to present “highly contradictory” findings. For prostate cancer, however, the group felt there was evidence to suggest a link between drinking green tea and lowered risk of the disease.
- Cancer: Endometrial. Researchers in China reviewed the results of seven studies on tea consumption and endometrial cancer and published their findings in the December 2009 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. They found that drinking two cups of tea daily was associated with a 25 percent reduction in the risk of developing endometrial cancer. Green tea appeared to offer much greater protection than black.
- Diabetes. A study published in December 2009 in the Archives of Internal Medicine reviewed seven studies with 286,701 total participants. Researchers found that individuals who drank more than three cups of tea a day had a one-fifth lower risk of developing diabetes than those who did not drink any tea. The researchers also found that decaffeinated coffee consumption decreased risk as well, indicating that the lowered risk was not simply due to caffeine intake.
- Heart Attack. Examining a variety of published studies, the Linus Pauling Institute in Oregon notes that there is little corroborating evidence for the many health claims about tea, but does support studies that show drinking at least three cups of black tea per day may be associated with a “modest decrease in the risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack).”
- Stroke. UCLA researchers reviewed nine studies of 4,378 strokes among nearly 195,000 individuals. At the 2009 International Stroke Conference hosted by the American Heart Association, the researchers reported that consumption of at least three cups of black or green tea decreased the risk of stroke by 21 percent.
Tea may indeed help, and it rarely appears to hurt. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine does caution those on anticoagulant drugs like Warfarin to limit their intake of tea because the small amount of vitamin K in green and black teas can make the anticoagulants less effective.
While the scientific community debates the numbers, millions of tea drinkers and thousands of years of tradition speak of its benefits, both mental and physical. “I think there will be [scientific] validation when it’s all said and done,” says Des Rosier.
The question may not be if tea can truly mitigate disease but when its benefits will be codified by modern science. “People often ask what the healthiest tea is,” says Sheei. “We always say, ‘The best tea is the one you drink the most.’”
Tea tastings:
The Anaba Tea Room hosts three tea tastings in conjunction with Rishi Tea. The 2010 dates are: April 11 – Spring Harvest; July 18 – Iced Tea; Nov. 28 – Holiday Teas
