Tea -- Plenty of It -- May Do the Body Good

[Guest guest]

By Sally Squires

Tuesday, July 17, 2007; Page HE05

Seidman, director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the

Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, hates the taste of green tea. But that

doesn't stop him from drinking a cup five days a week. When he's done,

Seidman squeezes the liquid out of the tea leaves and then -- get this --

eats them.

The leaves are so bitter that Seidman immediately brushes his teeth to

remove the taste and to be sure that the tea doesn't stain his tooth enamel.

" My wife just looks at me and rolls her eyes, " says Seidman, an ear, nose

and throat surgeon who also has a degree in nutrition. " But there's no doubt

in my mind that green tea has many health benefits. "

Other scientists are not so convinced. " There are hundreds, if not thousands

of papers on tea, but the results are often split, " notes tea researcher

Jack F. Bukowski, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at Harvard

Medical School.

So where one study finds that tea boosts immune function, another shows no

effect. Most of the research has been limited to animals. Scientists have

yet to examine all the properties of green, black, oolong and white tea.

They don't yet know if the variety of tea -- Darjeeling vs. jasmine green

tea, for example -- could make a difference. Or what effect there may be

from drinking tea straight or mixing it with milk, sugar, lemon or other

spices. There isn't even agreement on whether a cup of tea means the barely

four ounces you sip from fine china or the hefty 16 ounces in an oversize

mug.

" Tea has big possibilities, " says Bukowski, who has spent 15 years studying

the ancient beverage. " But we have a long way to go before we can confirm

the health benefits. "

None of that has stopped interest in tea from coming to a full boil. In

January, Coca-Cola introduced Enviga, a green tea beverage said to " help you

burn calories " by boosting metabolism. Last year, a Japanese company

petitioned the Food and Drug Administration for permission to label green

tea as offering protection against heart disease. (The agency denied the

request, citing " supportive but not conclusive results. " )

One substance in tea, the tongue-twisting epigallo-catechin gallate (EGCG),

appears to reduce psoriasis, prostate cancer and colon tumors (at least in

animals) and is now an ingredient in a growing number of foods, beverages

and dietary supplements. But that's just one of the components of tea that

may have health benefits.

Second only to water as the most widely consumed beverage in the world, tea

is also one of the oldest. Introduced about 5,000 years ago in China, tea

became a common drink in the Sui dynasty of the 6th century and reached

Japan around 580, according to " The Romance of Tea, " an authoritative

history of the beverage published by H. Ukers in 1936. In 1662,

of Braganza -- the Portuguese-born wife of King II --

became the first tea-drinking British queen. Penn is credited with

introducing tea to Pennsylvania.

Tea drinking plummeted in the Colonies after the Boston Tea Party. But by

the early 20th century, Americans were drinking enough tea to invent the tea

bag and introduce iced tea.

In 2006, more than 2.25 billion gallons of tea were sipped in the United

States, according to the Tea Association, an industry group. That works out

to about 132 cups per person per year. Even so, consumption here lags behind

that in much of the world, particularly China, Japan and other parts of

Asia, " where they drink tea all day long like we drink bottled water, "

Bukowski says.

U.S. tea drinkers are concentrated in the Northeast and the South, where

sweet tea is the rule. As in most Western countries, black tea is preferred

over green tea. Unlike people in the rest of the world, Americans consume 85

percent of tea iced rather than hot, according to the Tea Association.

Tea leaves are plucked from a warm-weather evergreen shrub, Camellia

sinensis, that is indigenous to China and India but now also thrives in

mountainous regions from Argentina to Malawi. Oolong tea is exposed to the

air to oxidize for two to three hours after harvesting, while black tea is

oxidized for up to four hours. (As for the wide range of herbal teas,

they're made from the roots, leaves and flowers of other plants and are not

technically tea at all.)

Neither green tea nor white tea, which is made from the tender, young leaves

of the tea plant before they turn color, is allowed to oxidize after

harvesting. Some scientists think that may give them a nutritional edge,

since they may contain higher amounts of antioxidants. These substances help

protect against cancer and appear to counteract the chronic inflammation

that contributes to heart disease, arthritis and other chronic illness.

A growing number of studies suggest such potential benefits from tea as

improved mental alertness, lower blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels,

reduced blood pressure, lower risk of breast, colon, lung, ovarian and

prostate cancer, as well as possible protection again Type 2 diabetes and

maybe even help with weight loss. But even if such findings are confirmed,

you'd need to drink a lot of tea to reap any benefit.

" The research suggests that drinking one to two cups of tea per day may not

be enough, " Bukowski says. " You may need more like five to 10 cups per day. "

Ounce for ounce, tea contains about half the caffeine found in coffee, so

that could be a lot of caffeine. Whether decaf works as well is not yet

clear.

For the biggest punch of antioxidants and other potentially healthful

ingredients, drink tea shortly after brewing it. And resist the temptation

to reuse tea bags, since that produces a less potent brew.