Stress Management

Tea Helps the Heart

A research team at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston has found that heart-attack risk in people drinking one or more cups of tea per day was about half that of those who drank no tea.

The team's findings suggest that "tea may be beneficial because it contains flavonoids which reduce platelet aggregation and inhibit LDL-cholesterol oxidation," according to Peter Wehrwein, in an article "More evidence that tea is good for the heart," in the January 30, 1999 issue of The Lancet, the journal of the British Medical Association.

The research team found that "all teas are not equal." Gary Beecher of the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service reported on catechin (flavan-3-ol) concentrations in different forms of tea. Several brands of black tea had substantial amounts of catechins. However, there were reduced amounts in decaffeinated black tea, and catechins were undetectable in herbal teas.

Source: The Lancet, Jan 30, 1999

Related Topic: Green Tea