Drink black tea to enhance your cardiovascular health

Earlier in time, black tea was thought to display fewer health-promoting effects than green tea, given that black tea is fermented and enriched with fewer polyphenols than green tea. However, this may not be entirely true when considering an experiment study recently conducted by Italian researchers from the Aquila University. (1)

The Italian researchers recruited overall 19 volunteers, aged in their fifties, who had recently been diagnosed with mild to moderate arterial hypertension, without taking any antihypertensive medication. These subjects were free of any concomitant diseases and were not taking any medications.

All volunteers were administered a cup of black tea or placebo beverage to drink twice per day for a 1-week period, with circulating endothelial cells measured in their blood samples. One week of black-tea-drinking significantly increased the number of circulating endothelial progenitor cells by 56%. The consumption of two cups of black tea per day likewise improved the volunteers’ cardiovascular system, on account of the black tea drinker vessels’ ability to appropriately dilate their blood vessels.

In brief, the regular consumption of black tea is associated with major cardiovascular benefit

(1) Grassi D, Draijer R, Schalkwijk C, et al. Black Tea Increases Circulating Endothelial Progenitor Cells and Improves Flow Mediated Dilatation Counteracting Deleterious Effects from a Fat Load in Hypertensive Patients: A Randomized Controlled Study. Nutrients. 2016;8 :11.