Black Tea Appears to Be Heart-Healthy
“Black” Tea, or what we think of here in the Southern part of the U.S. as “regular tea,” appears to help your heart! Tea can help reduce Blood Pressure, and lower overall heart rate. So, drinking tea (sweetened by Stevia, for me!) is a great way to improve your heart health! Stevia has the added benefit of of strengthening the heart muscle! Not to mention NOT using sugar, which can play havoc with your metabolism, or nasty artificial sweeteners!
Doctors Health Press reports on study: black tea good for the heart
“November 7, 2012 — Doctors Health Press, a division of Lombardi Publishing Corporation, and a publisher of various natural health newsletters, books, and reports, including the popular online Doctors Health Press e-Bulletin, is reporting on a recent study at the School of Medicine and Pharmacology, University of Western Australia, which proved that regular ingestion of polyphenol-rich black tea can lower blood pressure, supporting vascular health.
As noted in Doctors Health Press e-Bulletin, black tea is now proving itself to be a heart-healthy food. Black tea has long been a staple drink for many people, and has also been a ‘kinder and gentler’ drink for those who want to avoid the extra jolt that comes with a cup of coffee.
As reported in the article ‘Fight High Blood Pressure with This Tea,’ the research team was able to prove, in fact, that regular ingestion of polyphenol-rich black tea over six months results in lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure. However, what they hadn’t been able to show was how long or when these effects were most likely to occur. So, they set out to determine if the short-term effects of tea on blood pressure could contribute to longer-term benefits of regular tea consumption on blood pressure.
As Doctors Health Press e-Bulletin outlines, researchers recruited men and women for a randomized placebo-controlled trial. During a four-week lead-up, all participants consumed three cups of black tea per day. Participants then consumed three cups over one day of either powdered black tea solids, containing 429 milligrams of polyphenols (tea), or a control product matched in flavor and caffeine content, but containing no tea solids.
The researchers then measured blood pressure and heart rate over the 24-hour period. They found that the 24-hour daytime and night-time blood pressure rates were not significantly different between tea users and control subjects. However, heart rate was significantly lower for tea drinkers compared to control subjects during the nighttime and early morning periods, respectively.
As the article concludes, researchers noted that these results suggest that the longer-term benefits of black tea on blood pressure are unlikely to be due to short-term changes.”