Tea and Health Research, A Look Ahead

Adapted from Linus Pauling Institute, June 2007

"Tea is beating all scientific expectations as the most potent health beverage ever," says researcher John Weisburger at the American Health Foundation. "The many ways tea can promote health is truly astonishing."
 
Given the tremendous amount of solid research on the health benefits of biologically active compounds found in foods, and especially in tea, one could imagine that all the important research has been done, and there is little more discover or prove.
 
After all, tea has been shown to in many studies conducted by reputable researchers to have benefits including:

• Cancer protection
• Cholesterol reduction
• Blood pressure reduction
• Antibacterial and antiviral activity
• Protection against radiation
• Reduction of body fat
• Reduction of blood sugar
• Polyphenols (potent antioxidants) are highest in Green and White Teas.

So, what is the value of more research? Part of what makes scientific studies valuable is that they are generally conducted using rigorous methods, have undergone peer review, and the results of one study can be independently verified by being repeated by another researcher.  It is also important to test the health benefits of tea in human beings rather than in animal studies or in the Petri dish, because the results do not always apply in human beings.
 
What is emerging are more studies conducted using human trials, with more specific research into the specific biological action of the dietary compounds found in tea.

Next Steps

In general it is important for future research to be conducted using human trials, both in the short and long term, and to repeat these studies as much as possible to secure a scientific verdict on specific health benefits.  Think of the debate on global warming - no matter what the evidence, there will be a group of researchers who deny the claims or fault the specifics of how a particular research experiment was conducted.
 
More importantly, the tremendous accomplishments of modern science are based on a thorough understanding of how specific compounds work in the body - right down to the specific chemical pathways and biochemistry involved.  Future research is aimed at not only demonstrating specific compounds found in tea can have specific health and disease-fighting benefits, but understanding the details of the biochemical mechanisms involved.

Golden Age

Given the research that has been done over the past few years, the prospects for demonstrating the specific biochemical mechanisms involved in producing health benefits based on the action of specific dietary nutrients found in green and black tea is exciting.  Once better understanding of the specifics of health and the chemistry of the body is achieved by researchers, this will open the door to a true golden age of possible disease prevention and health maintenance - many aspects of which may very well be traced to research done on the specific health effects of tea.  Those of us who enjoy tea in all its forms can take heart that this type of research is ongoing, and continued to reap benefits and demonstrate that the tradition of drinking tea has more benefits that we ever imagined.