What will happen to the health of people who drink tea for a long time?

“I am a living specimen of longevity by drinking tea.”

In 2017 , 108- year-old Zhang Tianfu passed away. Zhang Tianfu is one of the top ten tea experts in modern China and is also known as the tea master. As his name means “Hong Fu Qi Tian”, he lived to be 108 years old, and 108 is the year of tea longevity. This age is already very difficult, and he still maintained a very high quality of life in his later years.

Zhang Tianfu attributed his longevity to drinking tea, and his acquaintance with his second wife was also inseparable from tea. 98- year-old Zhang Tianfu ignored the controversy in the world and proposed to 57- year-old acrobat Zhang Xiaohong. The two have been together for 10 years and have become a good couple.

Many people have a very deep prejudice against drinking tea. In fact, tea is a healthy drink.

1. Drinking 2-3 cups of tea a day may reduce the risk of death and extend life.

What is the connection between drinking tea and health? Last year, a study published by the National Cancer Institute in the Annals of Internal Medicine the UK Biobank database analyzed 498,043 to participants aged 40 49 in and found that tea intake was associated with the risk of all-cause death. There is a certain connection.

① 2-3 cups a day can reduce 13% the risk of death by

a day ②4-5 cups can reduce 12% the risk of death by

a day ③6-7 cups can reduce 12% the risk of death by

a day ④8-9 cups can reduce 9% the risk of death by

⑤More than 10 cups a day can reduce 11% . the risk of death by

be seen that drinking 2-3 cups of tea every day has It can the lowest probability of death.

Why is drinking tea good for health and longevity?

Luo Jun, lecture professor at the Tea Science Department of Zhejiang University, said that tea mainly has three major functional substances – tea polyphenols, theanine, and tea polysaccharides. These three ingredients work together to exert the health-supporting effects of tea.

Antioxidant: Tea polyphenols have strong free radical scavenging ability. In addition to inhibiting magnesium oxide, it can also activate the antioxidant system.

Assist metabolism: Overnutrition is a common problem among modern people, and tea can help promote digestion and improve the body’s metabolic function.

Aesthetic pleasure: Tea can give people a sense of pleasure, which is the function of theanine, giving people a feeling of excitement and pleasure.

2. It’s time to re-examine these misunderstandings about tea drinking

Tea has been with the world for thousands of years, and the “rumors” about it have also been around for a long time. It’s time to look at these “misunderstandings” about tea drinking correctly.

1. Are there pesticides in non-organic tea?

Different from the cultivation method of organic tea, organic tea “depends on the weather” and the cost of tea is very high. Therefore, many tea industries will choose non-organic tea garden management. However, this management method is low-cost. In order to ensure that the tea leaves are not invaded by bacteria and insects If they bite, pesticides will be used to kill them, which also makes many people think that organic tea is “pesticides”.

In fact, non-organic tea gardens do need to rely on pesticides for pest control and sterilization, but pesticide varieties, degradation cycles, and application times all need to comply with national regulations, and their use is not “unrestricted . ” Even if there are pesticide residues, the residues on tea are much less than on agricultural products such as vegetables, fruits, grains and oils.

2. Are all carcinogens in Pu’er tea?

Pu’er tea is a very common tea variety. However, as a fermented tea, some people think that a kind of “Aspergillus” will appear during Pu’er fermentation, and link “Aspergillus” with “aflatoxin”, believing that Pu’er can also cause cancer.

In fact , Pu’er will produce Aspergillus niger and Rhizopus before fermentation, and Aspergillus griseo, Penicillium and yeast will appear in the later stage, but these microorganisms are harmless to the human body . In particular, Aspergillus niger will also have a certain inhibitory effect on Aspergillus flavus, and tea is rich in caffeine and tannin, which can also inhibit the growth of Aspergillus flavus.

3. Does overnight tea cause cancer?

Many people believe that “overnight tea” is related to “carcinogenesis”. If tea is left overnight for a long time, carcinogens may be produced, so it cannot be drunk.

Studies have confirmed that covered and stored for 12 the nitrite content produced by tea leaves hours is very small, and it will not be converted into nitrosamines , and nutrients such as tea polyphenols are not reduced. However, as the tea leaves are stored for a longer period of time, the color will become darker and the tea aroma will weaken. The taste is naturally not as good as fresh tea.

4. Will drinking tea cause kidney stones?

Many people believe that tea is rich in oxalic acid, and oxalic acid will combine with calcium in the human body to form calcium oxalate. Kidney stones are mostly related to calcium oxalate, so drinking tea is easy to get kidney stones.

Experimental studies have shown that the oxalic acid content in tea has a very low risk of forming kidney stones. Not only will it not increase the incidence, it will also slightly reduce it. Moreover, multiple studies have confirmed that tea polyphenols have a certain protective effect on renal tubular epithelial cell damage and can inhibit the formation of calcium oxalate in the kidney.

3. These teas are made with additives, so drink them sparingly.

For those who like to drink tea, which teas should we avoid?

1. Dyeing tea

Some netizens said that the green tea they purchased online was abnormally green, but it tasted very fragrant. This kind of tea may involve dyeing practices – every spring, unscrupulous traders use lead chrome green to refurbish old tea and pretend to be new tea for sale. It is not allowed to add pigments to tea. The main components of lead chromium green are lead chromate and iron blue. Long-term consumption will cause heavy metals such as lead and chromium to seriously exceed the standard and cause harm to the human body .

How to tell if it is truly new tea ? Or dyed tea?

Observe the tea leaves: Generally, the color of new tea is not emerald green, but yellow-green, while dyed tea leaves are not yellow at all, like fresh leaves.

Observe the tea soup: the tea soup brewed from truly new tea will be green and clear, while the tea water brewed with dye will be yellowish and turbid.

2. Flavored tea

Tea itself has its own tea aroma, but some unscrupulous tea middlemen, driven by profits, will add food flavors and pigments to low-grade, inferior tea to enhance the aroma of tea and thereby improve the color of tea. This is illegal flavored tea.

In fact, a trick to identify flavored tea is to put a paper towel in the tea can, cover it with a lid, and take it out for half an hour to an hour. If the paper towel has a chemical smell, it can be identified as flavored tea . For tea leaves without added flavors, paper towels generally taste the same as tea.

If you want to shorten the time, you can also brew tea directly with hot water, then cover the mouth of the cup with a paper towel, let it sit for 1 minute, then take it off and smell if there is any odor attached.