Tea Cure

Japanese smokers have only half the lung cancer rate as American smokers. In areas of Japan where the most tea is drunk, the rate of stomach cancer is the lowest. In a study of 6,000 Japanese women, those who drank 5 cups or more of green tea per day cut their risk of strokes by 50 percent. "Drinking tea with meals in Japan and China," says a cancer researcher at the University of British Columbia, "is thought to be a major reason for low cancer rates in these countries."

Long-term consumption of black tea -- the kind that most Americans and Europeans drink -- and of other foods such as apples containing chemicals called flavonoids was associated with a much lower risk of stroke in a study of 552 Dutch men. Flavonoids are natural vitamin like compounds.

In the study, men with a high flavonoid intake had a 73 percent lower risk of stroke during 15 years of follow-up, compared with men with a low intake of flavonoids. The men in the study got about 70 percent of their flavonoids from drinking black tea.
Men who drank more than 4.7 cups of tea a day had a 69 percent reduced risk of stroke compared with men who drank less than 2.6 cups a day, said the researchers of the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection in Bilthoven, the Netherlands.

Tea also helps prevent tooth decay in several ways. According to researchers at the Tokyo Dental College, it fights the kinds of bacteria in the mouth that cause gum disease and the eventual loss of the teeth. A study by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization revealed that mice made to sip black tea suffered 54 percent fewer cancers than those that drank water. Properties in green and black tea called antioxidants are thought to be active agents against skin cancer.
Human trials using black tea as a preventative against skin cancer began in Australia in 1997.