Milk cancels health benefit of drinking tea: study

Drinking tea can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke but only if milk is not added to the brew, German scientists said on Tuesday.

Research has shown that tea improves blood flow and the ability of the arteries to relax but researchers at the Charite Hospital at the University of Berlin in Mitte found milk eliminates the protective effect against cardiovascular disease.

"The beneficial effects of drinking black tea are completely prevented by the addition of milk, said Dr Verena Stangl, a cardiologist at the hospital.

"If you want to drink tea to have the beneficial health effects you have to drink it without milk. That is clearly shown by our experiments," she told Reuters.

Stangl and her team discovered that proteins called caseins in milk decrease the amount of compounds in tea known as catechins which increase its protection against heart disease.

They believe their findings, which are reported in the European Heart Journal, could explain why countries such as Britain, where tea is regularly consumed with milk, have not shown a decreased risk of heart disease and stroke from drinking tea.Courtesy Reuters

Courtesy of Reuters

Steve - this goes with what we have said all along about the recent research lauding the benefits of coffee and tea. Adding milk, sugar, artificial sweeteners, and other condiments cancel out most of the benefits. In order to reap the benefits from coffee and tea, it must be consumed plain, or at least with something like stevia, which is an herbal sweetener with no glycemic properties.