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Black Tea, Green Tea, Iced Tea
All have important anti-oxidant effects.
In China and Japan, many epidemiological studies have found that tea drinkers have a lower than average incidence of cancer.  Over the past decade, studies from other parts of the world have supported this conclusion.

In a study involving 35,000 women in Iowa, those who drank at least two cups of tea a day had 60 percent less kidney and bladder cancer and 32 percent less cancer of the esophagus and colon.   A 15-year study of men in the Netherlands concluded that those who drank more than four cups of green tea a day were 69 percent less likely than others to suffer a stroke.  In Ohio, a study by Dr. Hasan Mukhtar of Case Westem Reserve University found that mice which were given green tea and exposed to chemical carcinogens or ultraviolet light developed 90 percent fewer tumors than mice which were not given tea.

The mechanisms by which tea conveys its health benefits are not yet fully understood.  However, University of Kansas chemist Lester Mitscher; Ph.D., maintains that, “Tea is the most powerful anti- oxidant there is.”  According to studies at Tufts University, one cup of green or black tea has more anti-oxidant power against the most common kind of free radical in the body, the peroxyl radical, than one-half cup of broccoli, carrots, spinach or strawberries.

In numerous animal and test-tube studies, compounds in tea called catechins have been effective against a broad spectrum of cancers.   Dr. Mitscher found that one catechin, EGCG, was 100 times more potent than vitamin C and 25 times more potent than vitamin E.   “EGCG blocks an enzyme that tumors use to grow new capillaries,” explains Jerzy Jankun, a tumor biologist at the Medical College of Ohio.

Studies of mice in Japan suggest that catechins also protect tissues from sun damage, cigarette smoke, air pollutants and radiation.  Some bacteria seem susceptible to catechins as well.  Asian studies have shown that green tea in one cup of green or inhibits bad breath, gum disease and tooth decay in laboratory rats.

Two on-going studies are further investigating teas anti-cancer properties:  Dr. Mitscher is studying the effects of the equivalent of four cups of tea a day in women at high risk for breast cancer and patients at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston are being tested for the effects of large quantities of tea on tumor shrinkage.  According to experiments by Dr. Mitscher green tea has about twice the anti-oxidant effect of black tea.  Commercial tea preparations of bottled iced tea or powdered tea mix have similar effects and decaffeinated tea is also effective. Herbal infusions, like chamomile or peppermint, are not true teas from the plant Camellia sinensis and thus do not have the same healthful properties.

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