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| The healthiest vegetables are always green. Greens are undoubtedly healthy, but vegetables and fruits in other colors—red, orange, yellow, blue, and purple—all bring different nutrients to the table. You’ll get the most antioxidants, vitamins and minerals if you keep your plate colorful. |
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I’ve always enjoyed the occasional cup of tea—it can really help relax me after a long day--and as you know from my books I recommend a cup of tea for clients who need help thwarting late-night snacking. Now I’m rethinking the benefits of tea, and how much to drink. A number of new studies have recently come out showing that tea has significant health benefits and perhaps should be part of a healthy diet. Nothing has been proven definitively in humans, but here’s what’s in the news now:
• Tea protects against cancer.
• Tea lowers the risk of heart disease.
• Tea strengthens bones in postmenopausal women.
• Tea boosts the immune system.
• Tea promotes weight loss.
 After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world. It’s just a great beverage, and perfect for replacing those high in calories. There are three basic types of tea, all of which come from the evergreen shrub Camellia sinensis: black, green and oolong. What makes them different is the processing. The leaves are fermented to produce black tea, which is the most popular worldwide; they are un-fermented in green tea; and they’re semi-fermented in oolong tea.
All three teas contain compounds known as polyphenols, a class of bioflavonoids, found in all plants that have been shown to have anti-cancer, antioxidant, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral properties.
How much should you drink to reap tea’s health benefits?
The jury is still out, but one researcher thinks it takes more than four cups of green tea a day. Another says three to ten cups a day is necessary. Either way, that’s a lot of tea for most people. And it’s possible that too much tea, like too much of anything, may cause other problems—remember, all of these non-herbal teas—yes, even green tea!--contain caffeine (click here for more on caffeine).
Note: Herbal teas often contain no polyphenols because they’re made from different plants—in fact, they often contain no tea leaves at all.
Reducing the Risk of Cancer
Tea polyphenols are thought to fight cancer because they 1) prevent free radicals from damaging DNA, and so can stop the cancer before it starts; 2) slow the development of cancer cells by curtailing uncontrolled cell growth; and 3) destroy cancer cells while sparing the surrounding healthy cells. Research shows that the risk of cancers of the stomach, bladder, esophagus, and prostate are reduced by the consumption of tea, especially green tea.
Green Tea Lotion and Skin Cancer
Here’s yet another surprising new application for tea’s polyphenols. The chemicals may be able to prevent skin cancer when applied topically. According to a new study presented recently at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, levels of a protein called JNK-2 rise when the skin is exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light, and cause a chain reaction that turns normal  skin cells cancerous. However, polyphenols reduce the levels of JNK-2 in the skin, and block the reaction that causes tumors to form. The idea is to produce a lotion–or a sun block—that contains polyphenols and so prevent skin cancer after sun exposure.
Helping Heart Disease
Scientists now believe that the antioxidants in tea polyphenols keep “bad” cholesterol (LDL, low-density lipoprotein) from letting plaque accumulate in the arteries. In one study, researchers found that women ages 55 and older were 54 percent less likely to have atherosclerosis, which can lead to heart attack or stroke, than women who did not drink a cup or two of black tea every day. In fact, the more tea they drank, the less they were at risk for disease, the study concluded.
Fighting Osteoporosis
Although research has shown that too much caffeine can be bad for bones, a brand new study concludes that tea may build bone mass and protect against osteoporosis in spite of its caffeine content. In the study, which is in the recent issue of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and involved over 1,200 women between the ages of 65 and 76, tea drinkers had significantly greater bone mineral density measurements than non-tea drinkers. The thinking is that tea contains properties like those of the female hormone, estrogen, which may help maintain strong bones in postmenopausal women. (Interestingly, tea may have little effect in younger women.)
Tea—A Boost to the Immune System
A recent study reported at the American Chemical Society meeting in New York City on September 8, 2003 showed that five to six cups of black tea daily boosted the part of the immune system that fights against infection. The researchers found that tea had the specific types of molecules that could activate the immune system’s gamma delta T lymphocytes that defend against infection and tumors. After drinking five to six cups of tea a day for two or four weeks, the blood samples of their volunteers were able to react against bacteria five times better than before the volunteers drank the tea. There are currently plans for a follow-up study that will determine whether drinking tea can actually prevent sickness.
 Tea and Weight Loss
I have a simple philosophy about weight loss: Eliminate emotional eating, get moving with the right exercise program and eat a healthy diet in moderation. But since we’re talking about tea I want to inform you about a recent study at the Institute of Physiology at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. The authors conclude that green tea extract boosts the burning of calories and fat needed to lose weight. It did this by increasing thermogenesis, the generation of body heat that naturally occurs as a result of the digestion, absorption and metabolization of food. In short, it boosted their calorieburning ability. I don’t want you to think this is a magic elixir. It’s not. I just think the findings are interesting in the context of all the new research on the health benefits of tea.
All of this research makes it seem as if tea should be a daily staple of your diet. Some tea is fine—as I like to contend, everything in moderation.
Many more studies need to be done before we can count on tea to deliver long, healthy lives. In the meantime, the surest way to better health and well being is a balanced diet and regular exercise.
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