Drinking tea is good for you but supposedly adding milk into your tea isn't. Interesting. I've always had milk with mine except when I have herbal tea or Chinese tea.
[FONT size=6]Milk blackens the good name of tea: scientists[/FONT]
[FONT size=1]Wednesday January 10, 2007
By Patricia Reaney [/FONT]
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LONDON - Drinking tea is good for your heart - so long as you take it without milk.
Research has shown that tea improves blood flow and the ability of the arteries to relax but researchers at the Charite Hospital at the University of Berlin found milk eliminates the protective effect against cardiovascular disease.
"The beneficial effects of drinking black tea are completely prevented by the addition of milk," said Dr Verena Stangl, a cardiologist at the hospital.
"If you want to drink tea to have the beneficial health effects you have to drink it without milk. That is clearly shown by our experiments."
Tea is second only to water in worldwide consumption so any benefits could have important public health implications.
However, until now it was not known whether adding milk had an impact.
Dr Stangl and her team discovered that proteins called caseins in milk decrease the amount of compounds in tea known as catechins which increase its protection against heart disease.
They believe their findings, which are reported in the
European Heart Journal, could explain why countries such as Britain, where tea is regularly consumed with milk, have not shown a decreased risk of heart disease and stroke from drinking tea.
The researchers compared the health effects of drinking boiled water and tea with and without milk on 16 healthy women.
Tea has also been shown to have a protective effect against cancer so the findings could have further implications.
- REUTERS
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