Hot tea much healthier than a warm cuppa

By ANGELA GREGORY

A strong, hot cup of tea every day may be helping to keep the doctor away.

Auckland University research has shown that a strong, hot brew contains more antioxidants than a weak one.

Antioxidants play a useful preventive role in slowing or stopping damage to DNA by attacking free radicals, an excess of which can cause cancer or heart disease.

Masters student Joy Hsu investigated the (polyphenol) antioxidants in 33 types of green, oolong and black teas under a range of circumstances.

She found that antioxidant levels increased with temperature and dropped markedly in reused tea.

Green tea was shown to have the highest average levels of antioxidants of all the teas tested, although oolong and black teas were not far behind.

Joy Hsu said that in Asian countries the first brew of oolong tea was usually discarded as being too bitter. However, the testing had shown that this first brew contained the most benefits.

Her research supervisor, Dr Paul Kilmartin, also tested the effects of milk and loose and bagged tea on the levels of antioxidants.

Dr Kilmartin said milk and tea bags only slightly decreased the benefits.

He said it would be interesting to determine the amount of tea required to be consumed each day to gain maximum benefit.

The antioxidants from the tea could be measured in the blood for a few hours. "It is probably better to have cups of tea gradually over the day."

Research into the health benefits of teas had been stimulated by studies conducted 10 years ago into antioxidants present in red wine.

Other research had shown that shortly after consuming antioxidant-rich substances antioxidant levels in the blood increased.

However, only about 1 per cent of the individual antioxidants consumed and known to be present in the tea could be detected in the blood stream.

Scientists were still trying to figure out where the rest go or what they turn into, and it was possible they linked with other compounds in the blood stream.

Herald feature: Health