Teas Are Not As Healthy As You Think

This post is part of our Home Remedies Guide , a review of home remedies from dubious to doctor-approved. Read more here .

The tea section of a grocery store is sometimes more like a pharmacy. The boxes brag about health claims, and even if you choose good old green tea, deep down you know it has to be good for your health in some way… right? And then there are teas that are sold on social networks to lose weight in the abdomen or energize for the whole day. Can tea really do all this?

All of these products are different, so let’s dive deeper into each category. Like other home remedies , you probably can’t expect much from most teas, but some have known or potential benefits – and potential drawbacks.

Herb tea

Proponents will say that herbal tea is not actually tea, as the word refers to a drink made from the leaves of the tea plant. (They would call a drink without tea leaves a decoction .) Herbal tea can refer to just about any plant steeped in hot water to make a drink. For example, chamomile flowers are used to make chamomile tea. Most herbs used in this way are caffeine-free, so herbal teas are almost always caffeine-free.

Each plant used in herbal tea has its own potential benefits and drawbacks, so if you’re looking for specific benefits from herbal tea, it’s worth doing some research on the specific tea – not just what it’s “used” for, but what it’s used for. does it work and does it have any known side effects or could it interact with medications you are taking.

A 2019 review of the health benefits of herbal teas found that there have been surprisingly few studies that have carefully examined their health benefits. Several studies have been conducted on topics such as maternal health (including lactation), hypertension, diabetes, and mental health. But the authors found only one study on the effect of tea on colds or flu, and no studies on turmeric, fruit, or berry teas, despite their raw ingredients being studied in other formats (such as turmeric extracts).

They also found that most studies of herbal tea reported no side effects at all. Herbal teas are unlikely to cause serious problems, but that doesn’t mean the possibility should be ignored. The Poison Control Center notes that ginseng , foxglove , and arnica tea have been linked to health problems. They warn against brewing herbal teas and never giving herbal teas to babies .

Ultimately, this lack of data leaves herbal tea lovers guessing which teas to use and at what dosages, without necessarily knowing if they will work at all. All herbal medicines have a problem with inaccurate dosing, including tea: the active ingredient in a plant may be more concentrated in some parts of the plant than in others (e.g. flower or leaf), and this may vary depending on where the plant was grown. . and when in season it was collected.

Pharmaceuticals use stable and predictable dosages so that providers and patients have the best chance of getting the desired effect. Herbal preparations, on the other hand, are more of a guess. Teas add another level of unpredictability: how many active ingredients actually end up in the tea you drink? There is no way to know.

Fashionable tea drinks

Next, let’s take a look at tea-based or tea-like drinks that are aggressively marketed online by MLM influencers and distributors.

One category of tea is marketed as helping people lose weight or improve their figure. Sometimes they are regular teas with additional promotions, such as this Booty Tea , which contains pu-erh and green tea (both made from the tea plant) plus ginger.

But often such teas are brewed with laxatives. This Flatbelly tea contains senna, a laxative, and dandelion leaf, which is a diuretic. Laxatives and diuretics can cause you to lose water weight, so you will see the numbers on the scale drop temporarily. But they don’t cause weight loss, which is what you’re probably looking for when shopping for weight loss tea. Overuse of laxatives for weight loss can cause dehydration, electrolyte imbalances, and sometimes more serious side effects.

Another category of drinks is “loaded” or “fortified” tea. Often sold by MLM companies like Herbalife, they are advertised for their health benefits , but are more like energy drinks than the herbal or green teas mentioned above. They may be low in calories or contain corn syrup; some contain herbal stimulants or vitamins such as niacin (which in high doses causes a tingling sensation in the skin). Tea may or may not be. An article in US Pharmacist warns that the caffeine content is high enough to be potentially harmful to children and teens.

Green tea and other “real” teas

Tea made from the tea plant ( Camellia sinensis ) includes green tea, black tea, white tea, and oolong tea. These teas have a long history, are consumed all over the world and are the subject of much more research than herbal teas.

The advantages and disadvantages are better understood, but there is still not a ton of conclusive research on them. For example, its antioxidants “may” help prevent various diseases, and several studies have shown that tea drinkers tend to be healthier than people who don’t normally drink tea. However, these studies are observational in nature. The tea drinkers may have differed from their non-tea drinkers in other ways that influenced the results.

Tea also contains caffeine, which is known to affect alertness and concentration (potentially good) and can interfere with sleep (potentially bad). The National Institutes of Health reports that studies have shown inconclusive results for cancer, possibly positive results for heart disease, and failed to find a benefit for weight loss. “It is not known if green tea is beneficial for other conditions,” they write.