If you’re not already a tea drinker, it may be time to become one. Numerous studies have pointed to tea’s potential health benefits, from reducing the risk of cancer to staving off strokes. Now, a 2016 study suggests that regularly drinking tea may correspond to lower arterial stiffness, which means regularly drinking tea may help lower blood pressure. Keeping blood pressure in a healthy range (less than 120/80) reduces your risk for serious complications including heart attack, stroke, vision loss, and kidney disease. Drinking tea may be a way for high blood pressure sufferers to control their condition.
Habitual Tea Drinking and Lower Arterial Stiffness
The recent tea-drinking and high blood pressure study included data from over 5000 men and women between the ages of 40 and 75 in the Fujian Province of China. Participants reported information about their tea-drinking habits in a questionnaire. Based on the questionnaires, researchers classified 31.2% of participants as habitual tea drinkers (“habitual” was defined as having consumed tea once or more per week for at least 12 months). The researchers broke participants into the following groups:
- Habitual tea drinkers for more than 10 years
- Habitual tea drinkers for 6-10 years
- Habitual tea drinkers for 1-5 years
- Non-habitual tea drinkers
The researchers then measured participants’ brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity (ba-PWV) to determine the stiffness of their arteries. After adjusting for confounding factors, the researchers found that there was a negative correlation between tea consumption and arterial stiffness; that is, as the duration and daily amount of tea drinking increased, arterial stiffness decreased. This finding was significant because arterial stiffness is a predictor of future cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke.
How Does Tea Protect Against Arterial Stiffness?
Scientists believe that chemicals called catechins may be behind tea’s ability to control hypertension by keeping arteries flexible. Catechins are a type of flavonoid, a plant metabolite found in abundance in tea (especially green tea). These chemicals release nitrous oxide, which causes arteries to become more relaxed. When arteries are more relaxed, blood has an easier time flowing throughout the body.
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| Tea relaxes the artery walls so blood can flow through the body easier. Source: cdc.gov |
Catechins may provide additional benefits beyond just relaxing blood vessels: in test tube studies, they’ve proved to be more effective than vitamins C and E in stopping oxidative damage to cells. Oxidative damage is believed to be associated with a wide range of diseases.
How Can You Get the Most Benefit from Your Tea?
While there are limitations to the tea consumption and arterial stiffness study, it does lend support to the theory that drinking tea can help keep your blood pressure under control. While all types of teas have some benefits, green tea appears to benefit hypertension the most, due to its high catechin content. Furthermore, fresh tea that has been brewed for 3-5 minutes will bring out more catechins than bottled or instant tea and will do more for hypertension by further relaxing blood vessels.
If you’re looking for an easy way to manage your heart health, incorporating freshly-brewed tea into your diet for hypertension prevention and control could be a great step to take.
