Tea has been soaring in popularity, especially among those looking to boost metabolism or anyone wanting a java-free caffeine kick. Meanwhile, researchers have been exploring the possible benefits of tea for mental health and cognition.
While the term “tea†can be broadly applied to any infusion of herbs, fruit, flowers, or leaves, for the purposes of this article, we’re going to focus on true tea, from the Camellia sinensis plant. Tea contains many plant polyphenols, catechins, antioxidants, and other phytochemicals, and while they’re usually associated with boosting metabolism and warding off cancer, in fact, they may be just as beneficial for the brain and cognitive health.
Caffeine is probably the best known brain-booster found in tea. It’s effects are immediate: increased alertness, wakefulness, and attention. However, caffeine is a stimulant whose effects subside fairly quickly.
Uniquely, tea contains the amino acid L-Theanine which is more calming — it relaxes without inducing drowsiness. Caffeine and L-Theanine are a naturally-occurring pair found only in tea, which is why tea has been the drink of choice for monks needing concentration and focus when settling into a long meditation.
Consuming this combination of caffeine and L-Theanine (in extract form) has been found to help reduce mental fatigue while increasing reaction time and working memory. Â When taken over time (e.g., 16 weeks) this combination also helped with improvements in memory and cognitive alertness.
But of course, caffeine and L-Theanine are not the only compounds present in tea that may boost brain function — various catechins exert a positive influence, as well. Some preliminary evidence even suggests drinking tea can decrease the risk of dementia.
Scientists tested the effect of green tea catechins on mice and found that the green tea catechins can prevent cognitive dysfunction, improve working memory, and prevent negative changes in the brains of at-risk mice. One specific tea catechin, known as Theogallin, was tested in conjunction with L-Theanine and was found to be cognitive enhancing and anti-depressive. Significantly, another study looked at the L-Theanine plus Theogallin combination (also without caffeine), but this time on humans, and found that attention improved.
Daily consumption of white tea helped to maintain the health of the cerebral cortex part of the brain in pre-diabetic rats, according to this research. One meta study summarized the effects of consuming tea as this: “Caffeinated tea, when ingested at regular intervals, may maintain alertness, focused attention, and accuracy and may modulate the more acute effects of higher doses of caffeine.â€
So, how does all this research apply to you?
If you need to be focused, alert, have a quick reaction time, maintain short-term memory, accurately process information, and want to be in a good mood, opt for a few cups of tea. It may be a better choice for focused productivity than the ol’ cup of joe.
If, over the course of your life, you want to maintain cognitive function and memory, prevent a decline in brain function, and avoid memory loss, then drink tea regularly throughout your life. This may be particularly helpful if you have metabolic-related issues (such as Type-II Diabetes).
Though I drink tea regularly because I love it, sometimes I have an extra cup or two when I need to be really focused, think clearly, or write a lot.
When you drink tea, what effects do you notice? What does tea help you accomplish?
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Green tea boosts the number of “regulatory T cells†in the body, which are important for the immune system, according to research from the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University.
“When fully understood, this could provide an easy and safe way to help control autoimmune problems and address various diseases,†study researcher Emily Ho, an associate professor at the university, said in a statement. The research was published in the journal Immunology Letters.
The researchers specifically focused on the green tea compound EGCG, which is a kind of polyphenol. They said that the compound may work via epigenetics — influencing expression of genes — rather than “changing the underlying DNA codes,†Ho said in the statement.
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If you’re thirsty, tea can do the trick for hydration — even though it contains caffeine, according to a 2006 review in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
“Studies on caffeine have found very high doses dehydrate and everyone assumes that caffeine-containing beverages dehydrate. But even if you had a really, really strong cup of tea or coffee, which is quite hard to make, you would still have a net gain of fluid,†study researcher Carrie Ruxton, of Kings College London, told BBC News.
The researchers wrote in the review:
It is a common perception is that caffeine-containing drinks cause a net loss in fluid and may lead to dehydration. Again, many of the studies investigating this have used high doses of caffeine, often as a bolus. When caffeine is given in this way, there is indeed evidence of a diuretic effect but this is not relevant to normal use of caffeine-containing beverages where the caffeine would be consumed with 200-250 ml of fluid.
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The same European Journal of Clinical Nutrition review showed that drinking three or more cups of tea per day is linked with a lower risk of coronary heart disease, potentially because of the amount of antioxidants found in tea.
The University of Maryland Medical Center also reported that research has shown that green tea and black tea have atherosclerosis-preventing effects, although the FDA has yet to allow teamakers to claim that green tea can affect heart disease risk.
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Scottish researchers found that applying a compound in green tea shrinks tumors in lab tests. The compound is a flavanoid, called epigallocatechin gallate.
“When we used our method, the green tea extract reduced the size of many of the tumors every day, in some cases removing them altogether,†study researcher Dr. Christine Dufes, senior lecturer at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, said in a statement. “By contrast, the extract had no effect at all when it was delivered by other means, as every one of these tumours continued to grow.â€
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Who knew that green tea and gold could be so powerful against cancer?
University of Missouri researchers found that the two worked in tandem to fight prostate cancer tumor cells. Green tea compounds were the delivery mechanism, bringing the radioactive gold nanoparticles to the tumors. The gold was then able to kill the cancer cells, ABC News reported.
The research, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that this method was able to reduce tumor size by 80 percent in mice, HuffPost UK reported.
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Drinking green tea could help you function better — meaning you don’t need help doing basic activities like bathing or dressing — as you get older, according to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The research, which included 14,000 adults ages 65 and older over a three-year period, showed that the ones who drank the most green tea had the best functioning in old age compared with those who drank the least.
“Green tea consumption is significantly associated with a lower risk of incident functional disability, even after adjustment for possible confounding factors,†researchers concluded in the study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
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Drinking black tea could slightly decrease blood pressure, according to a study in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Reuters reported that participants drank either black tea, or a non-tea beverage that had similar caffeine levels and taste, for six months, thrice daily. The researchers found that those assigned to drink the black tea had a slight decrease in blood pressure, though not enough to bring someone with hypertension back into a safe zone, Reuters reported.
“Those are small changes and are nothing like what you would see if you took a blood pressure lowering medication,†Dr. Joseph Vita, of the Boston University School of Medicine (who was not involved in the study), told Reuters.
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Drinking green tea could help you reach your weight loss goals, according to a study in the Journal of Nutrition.
Researchers found that drinking five cups a day is linked with weight loss, particularly in decreasing belly fat, Health.com reported.
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Learn how tea can help you lose weight, fight disease and beautify your feet!