In a previous post I mentioned how green tea has been shown to fight leukemia but a University of Southern Calafornia team have found that if you’re being treated for leukemia with Velcade it can render the drug completely inneffective.
That doesn’t mean tea is dangerous or cancer causing but it is something you should avoid if you happen to be getting treatment using Velcade.
Just thought I’d give people a quick ‘heads up’ on that one.
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tea and health, tea
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Rooibos has been a popular drink in South Africa since the early 1900’s and started to gain popularity in the US and UK for its health benefits. Whether its deserving of the reputation for being an ‘elixir of life’ is what I’m going to find out!
Rooibos is Afrikaans for “red bush” which is the name it often goes by in the US and UK such as…. It bears no relation to the Camellia Sinensis plant responsible for our beloved green and black teas.
Rooibos does contain high levels of antioxidants such as aspalathin and nothofagin which aren’t found in traditional Camellia Sinensis and with lower caffeine content and tanins it has fewer side effects common in very high levels of tea intake. Although its worth noting tea has quite low level of caffeine anyway and few people suffer caffeine related side effects from tea unless sensitive.
I did note in a previous post on which tea is healthiest that Rooibos contains just 60-80mg of antioxidants per cup compared to the whopping 300-450mg available in green tea. Even black tea that has gone through a heavy oxidation process has more than rooibos with 130-200mg per cup.
Although it has to be said that amount of antioxidants isn’t the only indicator of the health benefits of rooibos. With its lower caffeine and tannin content it can be a useful alternative to those suffering from caffeine sensitivity.
Rooibos tea also happens to be a nice tea to drink for its own sake! I won’t switch to it as my ‘tea’ of choice any time soon but its certainly one I now keep in my cupboards whenever wanting the occassional nutty and sweat red bush.
My Top 3 Rooibos Teas
Tazo Tea African Red Bush
Teavana Blueberry Infused Rooibos Tea
Loose Leaf Adagio Rooibos
facts, health
health, rooibos
Its a common question among caffeine addicts and general caffeine drinkers:
How much caffeine is in X
Well – Jasmine tea is no exception and you’ll be happy (maybe sad – I dunno!) to know that ots similar to that of green tea. Jasmine tea contains very little caffeine of note and averages:
5-20mg per cup
facts, health
health, jasmine
I was going to do a post for two of these until I kept coming across more and more and realised it’d be easier to compile a list of teas recent health claims.
- Tea Reduces Risk of Stroke – More specifically ischemic stroke and just 1-2 cups per day of green or oolong tea can have a beneit. Read more.
- Tea Fights AIDS – The antioxidant EGCG has been found to hinder the ability for the AIDS virus to infect individuals. Read more.
- Green Tea Fights Incurable Leukemia – Another win for the EGCG compound found in tea and this time shown to shrink lymph nodes and reduce white cell counts in leukemia patients. Read more.
- Green Tea Weakens Lung Cancer Cells – Studies are starting into the potential use of green tea to weaken cancer cells in the lungs making them more susceptible to treatment. Read more.
- 3 Cups of Tea Cut Heart Attack Risk – This is old news but a new story so it makes the list. Read more.
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health
With Pu Erh tea spending anything from days to years underground you’d expect this fermentation process to produce some health benefit. We having brought together scientific papers, research and advice I find out the truth.
What did I find?
Pu erh tea has been drunk in china as a tonic for digestion. Far more so than any other tea. In traditional Chinese medicine it is believed to have high levels of Qi (chi) which helps to flush the body of toxins.
Yunnan Natural Medicine Research Institute in China found it to have a significant impact against cancer cells of the throat and mouth.
In another cancer study they found a side effect of the consumption of pu erh caused a reduction in weight, lowered cholesteral and lower triacylglycerol levels.
Pretty good and it makes a dam nice cup of tea too.
My recommendations…
A great tea brick called
Horse Pu-erh (2002)
is available from Mighty Leaf Tea.
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health, pu erh
Well as per the results of the voting here’s a healthy tea post. It looks like a recent study has shown that women who drink at least 3 cups of tea per day cut their breast cancer risk by a third.
Read more about this US study.
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health
Due to the roaring success of my previous post detailing the safety of tea during pregnancy I decided to handle another variety today.
So how safe is hibiscus tea when you’re expecting?
Well its not someone you should do in the first three months as it can have an impact on hormone levels and it has been shown to cause a decrease in male fertility. After 3 months moderate drinking of hibiscus flower tea should be perfectly safe.
Hibiscus Flower Tea is available from Now Foods.
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health, hibiscus
Well its not exactly an easy question to answer due to the huge variety of teas out there and how exactly you want to measure health benefits.
If we say the health score of a tea is based on its levels of antioxidants (flavinoids, catechins) then we could draw up the following table…
| Pos |
Antioxidants |
Tea |
| 1 |
400-600mg |
White Tea
 |
| 2 |
300-400mg |
Jasmine Tea[1] |
| 3 |
300-450mg |
Green Tea |
| 4 |
130-200mg |
Black Tea |
| 5 |
60-80mg |
Rooibos ‘Tea’[2] |
| 6 |
? (low) |
Instant Tea |
| 7 |
20-110mg |
Iced tea[3] |
[1] Jasmine tea’s base is green tea and its total antioxidant content is boosted by the presence of jasmine.
[2] Although Rooibos isn’t of the same species and not strictly a tea it is commonly reffered to as a tea. Now although many have claimed it has a higher antioxidant content than tea this isn’t true although it does contain a variety of unique antioxidants.
[3] The general consensus is that iced tea is the most heavily processed and thus least antioxidant rich of the teas. However, Lipton do claim that their tea with lemon contains an unusually high amount of flavinoids. How much we believe this is up to you.
(Hakim IA, Hartz V, Harris RB, Balentine D, Weisgerber UM, Graver E, Whitacre R, Alberts D. Reproducibility and relative validity of a questionnaire to assess intake of black tea polyphenols in epidemiological studies. Cancer Epidem Bio & Prev 2001; 10:667-78).
Antioxidant Activity of Black Tea vs. Green Tea (Ki Won Lee and Hyong Joo Lee) Department of Food Science and Technology School of Agricultural Biotechnology Seoul National University Suwon 441–744, Korea
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black tea, green tea, health, iced tea, science, white tea
Tulsi Bush
Tulsi tea is made with one of the key plants used in Ayurvedic practices. Its used primarily as an adaptogen – which means it helps your body adapt to stresses and balances the body’s natural flow.
Tulsi tea has quite a reputation in Ayurvedic practices as being the cure-all for many problems as well as being a general ‘elixir of health’.
Some of its claims include:
- Painkilling properties due to its concentrations of eugenol.
- Diabetes treatment due to its lowering of blood glucose levels.
- Cholesterol busting properties.
- High in antioxidants.
- Good for cataracts.
- Some studies have even shown it to treat radiation poisoning!
It has a taste and aroma that takes some getting used to. If you’ve ever drunk a very strong black tea without anything added then you’re getting close to the dry astringency of a tulsi tea.
Get some Organic India’s Tulsi Tea
facts, health
ayurveda, herbal tea
It seems a new study has been done and this time into the health benefits of Hibiscus tea. Now I’ll be honest and say I’ve never tried Hibiscus tea. If you’re like me then here’s the summary on hibiscus:
- Also known as Rosemallow.
- Its related to cocoa, cotton and okra plants.
- Often grown for its beautiful flowers.
- White Hibiscus is an important plant in Avuryeda.
- It is the national flower of South Korea and Malaysia.
So its not that suprising its got health benefits as the Inidians have been using it in their Avuryeda practices for thousands of years.
Drinking hibiscus tea lowered blood pressure in a group of pre-hypertensive and mildly hypertensive adults, according to a report being presented today by nutrition scientist Diane McKay at the American Heart Association’s annual conference
The volunteers involved in the study drank three cups daily for about 6 weeks and their blood pressure and other vital statistics were monitored.
The numbers are very promising with people losing several points off their blood pressure over the course of the study.
To get yourself a quality hibiscus tea I’d recommend Hibiscus Punch Herb Tea
You can read more here.
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health, herbal tea, hibiscus
