Tea and health
Tea and health
Question
Q:What’s the function of tea?
Beverage
Food
Medicine
Discussion
What’s your tea—drinking habit？
What’s the healthy tea—drinking habit?
True or false
Patients are generally suggested not taking medicines with tea.
the ones who have weak stomachs had better drink less tea.
people with anemia should had better drink less tea.
Tea also has the function of curing insomnia
The neurasthenic patients should not drink tea before going to bed.
What Does A Tea Leaf Contain?
Fresh-cut tealeaves consist of 75-80% water. A variety of green tea flavors are formed through the combination of main taste components:
Bitterness
Catechin & Caffeine
Sweetness
Theanine & Amino Acids
A Healthy Drink
Reading through the history of tea drinking, we could find that it was because tea was helpful to the health of people that made it a kind of drink and later popularized in people's life quickly.
According to the scientific analysis, most of the chemical ingredients in tea leaves known are related to the medicines used in curing. Its general effects could be divided into nutritive effect and curative effect.
1. Ingredients of Tea
Experts points that tea is a good medicine which can cure many diseases. the curative ingredients contained in tea are proved by modern medicine.
The modem curative research finds that there are really many ingredients in tea that are closely related to the human health and do have curative effects. The main ingredients are as follows:
(1) Vitamins
Vitamins is an indispensable material in the normal metabolism of human body, and tea contains many kinds of water-soluble vitamins that human body needs.
Taking vitamins with tea is beneficial to absorption
Doctors often suggest patients to take medicines with warm boiled water. However, sometimes, tea is a better choice.
The medicines can be taken with tea are antiallergics.Most people who take these drugs would
feel drowsy, weak and inefficient. If take these drug along with tea, the above-mentioned side effects would be relieved in varying degrees.
In addition, vitamins and some drugs for increasing white cells generally also can be taken along with tea, which has synergistic action with the drugs.
For instance, if you drink tea after taking Vitamin C, the tea catechin will contribute to absorption and accumulation of Vitamin C in your body.
But what we should pay attention to is more drugs should not be taken with tea. For example, Chinese medicines, due to their complicated components and ingredients which would react with tannin containing in tea to lower the effects of the medicines, may not be taken with tea.
OTC
Over The Counter
DO YOU KNOW Abbreviation？
CPPCC
AIDS
UNESCO
WTO
OPEC
ASEAN
GATT
IOC
WHO
UFO
GMT
CEO
SOS
NBA
FBI
CIA
I KNOW THEM
CPPCC =The Chinese People′s Political Consultative Conference 中国人民政治协商会议
AIDS =acquired immune deficiency syndrome：
后天免疫缺损综合症，即“艾滋病”
UNESCO＝United Nations Educational，Scientific and Cultural Organization
(联合国教科文组织)
WTO＝World Trade Organization
(世界贸易组织)
World Tourism Organization 世界旅游组织
OPEC＝Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries(石油输出国组织；“欧佩克”)
ASEAN＝Association of Southeast Asian
Nations(东南亚国家联盟；“东盟”)
GATT＝General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade(关贸总协定)
IOC＝International Olympic Committee
(国际奥林匹克委员会)
WHO＝World Health Organization
(世界卫生组织)
UFO＝Unidentified Flying Object
(不明飞行物；“飞碟”)
GMT＝Greenwich Mean Time
(格林威治标准时间)
CEO=Chief Executive Officer
(首席执行官)
SOS＝Save Our Souls
（紧急求救信号）
NBA= National Basketball Association
(美国篮球协会)
FBI＝Federal Bureau of Investigation
（美国联邦调查局）
CIA＝Central Intelligence Agency
（美国中央情报局）
A Dialogue Between Banks
中国建设银行——CCB (China Construction Bank)
——“存存不？”
中国银行——BC （Bank of China）
——“不存。”
国农业银行——ABC (Agriculture Bank of China)
——“啊，不存”
中国工商银行——ICBC (Industry and Commercial Bank of China)
——“爱存不存”
国家开发银行——CDB（China Development Bank)
——“存点吧！”
招商银行——CMBC（China Merchants Bank Ltd ）
——“存吗？白痴！”
兴业银行——CIB （Industrial Bank Co., Ltd ）
——“存一百”
汇丰银行——HSBC（Hongkong Shanghai Banking Corporation ）
——“还是不存”
(2)catechin
According to the medical research, the catechins contained in tea mainly have the functions of antioxidation, alleviation of the toxicity of heavy metal, protecting cardiovascular system, preventing and curing arteriosclerosis and the functions of eliminating toxicant, diuresis and sterilization.
It also has the effects of strengthening vein walls and cardiac muscles, reducing blood pressure, promoting absorption of Vitamin C, restraining the growth of bacilli, helping digestion, restraining the expansion of cancer cells and preventing the formation of thrombus.
However, there are different amounts of catechin content in different kinds of teas. Generally, catechins in green tea can be up to 15%-35% of the dry weight, and in some kinds of tea it may even exceed 40%; however, black tea has substantially less catechin than green tea due to its
oxidative preparation.
(3) Caffeine
Caffeine is regarded as a kind of analeptic, which could make the thinking of one's brain more rapid and clear, eliminate drowsiness and fatigue of muscles, make people more acute and heighten motive function.
Besides, according to the medical theories, after the nerve centre is stimulated, it will turn to be restrained.
Therefore if people suffer from insomnia, they could drink tea in the morning, making the nerve system highly stimulated during the day time and turn to highly restrained later, Combining with the practices of abstaining from all stimulating foods during the day, the symptom of insomnia would be much reduced at that night;
And the insomnia would be cured if people keep doing this for several days. In this way, tea also has the function of curing insomnia which is much healthier than the therapy of soporific.
(4) Many Organic Acids
There are many kinds of acids in tea; among which organic acids are the majority; usually there are the amino acid in protein, ascorbic acid, gallic acid of chemical compounds rich in phenol , butyric acid, oxalic acid, all are good to the health of human body.
We know that tea presents a slight acidity, and the acidity of gastric juice is much higher than tea. The organic acids and alkaloid in tea, such as morphine and nicotine could be neutralized into salts that could easily dissolved into water and then be discharged out of the body through urine. Therefore, it is especially good for smokers to drink tea.
These ingredients of tea leaves are mostly detected from the dried tea, but in daily life people usually drink the tea that are brewed, therefore the content of these ingredients in brewed tea certainly are much lower.
However, as long as we drink tea properly and correctly, it could still do much good to our health.
2 Benefits of Drinking Tea
Drinking a suitable amount of tea has the functions of thirst quenching, refreshing, digestion helping, detoxification. Furthermore, it has some pharmacological functions on radiation sickness, cardiac and brain artery diseases, and cancer.
Suitable amount of tea could promote diuresis and recover from fatigue.
The caffeine contained in tea leaves could stimulate the kidneys to make urine discharging more rapid, increase the filtering rate of the kidneys and reduce the time of harmful materials stopping in kidneys. Besides, it could also help discharge the excessive lactic acid in urine. This can help people get rid of fatigue quickly.
Especially during the time of hard work, tea is the best refreshing drink. However, there is a precondition, i.e. drinking suitable amount of tea, since drinking too much tea and too strong tea would over stimulate kidneys and make the body discharge much urine, which in turn would do harm to the functions of kidneys; and if there are little water in the body, it may also result in constipation.
Suitable amount of tea could prevent radiation sickness.
Researches prove that the catechin and its oxidizing materials contained in tea have the ability of absorbing radioactive matter . According to the clinical experiments carried out by some
medical institutions, when tea essence was given to tumor patients to cure mild radiation sickness caused by radiation therapy, the effective rate was 81.7%. It was effective in curing diseases caused by radiating.
Suitable amount of tea could prevent cancer and restrain cardiovascular
In tea leaves there is an ingredient called catechin, which has the effect of killing cancer cells directly and strengthening immune ability of the human body. Besides, it also plays an important role in the metabolism of human fat. If the cholesterol and three-acid glyceride in human body are too high, there will be fat deposition inside the blood vessel walls.
Tea is helpful in protecting skin, losing weight, and delaying aging.
The catechin and caffeine contained in tea leaves could have the effects of protecting skin, losing weight, and delaying aging to some extent and is very popular among the females.
Catching is a water-soluble matter, and using it to clean the face could clean out the greasiness, and also has the effects of destroying bacteria, resisting the aging of skin, and reducing the skin damage caused by ultraviolet radiation in the sunlight.
The caffeine in tea leaves could also increase the amount of gastric juice, which could help digestion and enhance the body's ability of decomposing fat. Therefore, drinking tea could help lose weight.
3. Undos in Drinking Tea
Tea is a kind of healthy drink, but people should also pay attention to the amount of drinking. Over drinking or drinking in unsuitable time would do harm to people's health. Generally speaking, people should abstain from the ways of drinking tea as follows:
No hot tea
It is better to drink warm tea, since hot tea would give strong stimulation to people's gorge, gullet and stomach, which may result in pathological changes. Therefore the temperature of tea had better not be higher than 60℃, It is best to drink tea of45-55℃.
No cold tea
Cold tea would also have bad effect on people’s mouth, gorge and stom ach. Besides, drinking cold tea, especially the ones below 10℃, would do harm to the human body.
No large amount of tea before meal
Drinking large amount of tea before meal first would dilute saliva, and second it would affect the excretion of gastric juice, which will make people feel tasteless when eating, and thus in turn affect the digestion and absorption of foods.
No tea immediately after meal
It is not suitable to drink tea immediately after meal, because in tea leaves there contain a fairly large amount of catechin, which will solidify the iron and protein in foods, hence affecting human body's absorption of iron and protein.
No drinking of long-brewed tea
If the tea leaves are steeped for a long time, the catechin, aromatic components, vitamin, protein, etc in tea leaves would oxidize and turn into harmful matters. Besides, there would also infest bacilli in the water and thus easily cause diseases. Therefore, it is best to drink the tea when it is newly brewed.
No strong tea
Too much amount of catechin and codeine in strong tea would be too stimulating, resulting in the disorders of metabolism of human body and even headache, nausea, insomnia etc.
4. Certain Patients' Alerts in Tea Drinking
In additional to the ways of tea drinking mentioned above that should be avoided, there are also many things that need to pay attention to for some special groups of people. The principle should be that people of different constitution should drink different kinds of tea.
The weak people should not drink black and green teas.
A person who catches a fever should drink Oolong Tea or black tea.
people of low blood pressure are suitable for drinking black tea to keep the warmth of their body. When people are in a blue mood or catch a cold, they could brew tea together with orange peel, or drink the very fragrant jasmine tea or black tea. And after eating too foods, people could drink green tea or Pu'er tea.
Patients of gastropathy should be cautious in tea drinking
If the patients of gastropathy drink over amount of tea or drink strong tea, it would result in the pathological changes (病变)in stomach and intestine(肠)s and then ulceration (溃疡). The canthin ingredients in tea could have some effect on the mucous membrane(黏膜) of the stomach, which are prone to result in discomfort of the stomach, nausea and vomit, so the ones who have weak stomachs had better drink less tea .
People suffered from iron deficiency anemia had better quit drinking tea
If you suffer from iron deficiency anemia, then you'd better not drink tea. This is because the catechin in tea leaves would easily react with the iron in food, which would influence the body’s absorption of iron and in turn aggravate the disease. The other types of anemia patients should be cautious about drinking tea and had better drink less tea.
People suffered from coronary heart disease should drink tea according to different situations. Coronary heart diseases can be divided into tachycardia and bradycardia. The alkaloid in tea leaves, especially caffeine, has the stimulating effect and could strengthen the function of cardiac muscle. Therefore, the people suffered from coronary heart disease with tachycardia had better not drink tea or drink only a little weak tea, or it would make the symptom of tachycardia worse. The neurasthenic patients should drink suitable amount of tea in suitable time
The neurasthenic patient’ major symptom is insomnia, and there is a high content of caffeine in tea leaves which would stimulate the nerve center and make the patients exciting. Therefore, for the neurasthenic patients, they should first not drink strong tea, and second not drink tea before going to bed.