Tea and me

I was basically someone who did not drink tea or coffee unless I had an exam a few days away and I really needed to stay awake and study. One fine day I decided to try something. I decided to make the perfect cup of tea and looked up the Internet for instructions on how to make the perfect cup of black tea. I finally got everything I needed to make the tea, and made it just as they said in the recipe. It was good. But then I had made a little extra so I left it there and sat down to study something. After a while of studies I came back for a snack and saw my tea there again, this time it was cold and I tasted it and thought “Wow!” this is good stuff.

I drank up and went back and hit the books again. At the end of the day while lying in bed at night I realized that I had completed all the topics I had set for myself for that day and was not as drained out as usual. I went over the events of the day and realized that it was an ordinary day with the only exception being that I had two cups of tea. The next day I decided that there must be something about tea that I had not known until now and decided to do some research. What I found, amazed me, and now I’m a firm believer in the beneficial effects of tea.

Here were some of the problems that used to worry me:
• My dad has diabetes and I was afraid I would also end up diabetic.
• I wanted to lose a few kilos.
• I had to study hard for my post grad exam which was around the corner and I kept forgetting stuff that I had read a month back.
Here are some of the things that I found:
• Black tea increases your metabolic rate. Clinical trials conducted by the University of Geneva and the University of Birmingham indicate that green tea raises metabolic rates. In addition to caffeine, green tea contains catechin polyphenols that raise thermogenesis (the rate at which calories are burned), and hence increases energy expenditure.
• It also apparently increases endurance in exercise by improving fat metabolism.
• Tea speeds up fat oxidation and improves insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance, this is really good news for diabetics (I did not say you can start adding sugar in the tea though)
• John Foxe, Ph.D., professor of neuroscience, biology and psychology at City College of the City University of New York, found that theanine is absorbed by the small intestine and crosses the blood-brain barrier, where it affects the brain's neurotransmitters and increases alpha brain-wave activity. The result is a calmer, yet more alert, state of mind. (Exams, here I come!!)
• In 2003 the Brigham and Women's Hospital released details of a research project which indicated that theanine may help the body's immune system response when fighting infection, by boosting the disease-fighting capacity of gamma delta T cells. The study included a four-week trial with 11 coffee drinkers and 10 tea drinkers, who consumed 600ml of coffee or black tea daily. Blood sample analysis found that the production of anti-bacterial proteins was up to five times higher in the tea-drinkers, an indicator of a stronger immune response.
• According to a study by UCL researchers, drinking black tea lowers stress hormone levels. Just 50 minutes after a high stress event, tea drinkers, who had been drinking 4 cups of black tea daily for a month, had a 20% greater drop in cortisol than the placebo group. Blood platelet activation, which is linked to blood clotting and the risk of heart attacks, was also lower for tea drinkers.

And that is not all, the list goes on. But it was enough to convince me.

But for us Indians there is one more piece of news that we need to keep in mind.

All of this information refers to studies where the tea did not have any milk in it!!
A study at the Charité Hospital of the Berlin Universities showed that adding milk to tea will block the beneficial effects that tea has in protecting against cardiovascular disease. This occurs because casein from the milk binds to the molecules in tea that cause the arteries to relax. Tea protects against cancer but one you add milk this benefit is lost again. So the take home message is drink tea, leave out the milk (and sugar for diabetics) and stay happy.