Can Black Tea Lower Blood Glucose?

Garden of Healing®
DOCTOR

Can Black Tea be used to Lower Blood Glucose?

QUESTION:

Dear Garden of Healing® Doctor(s):

I have diabetes and hear alot about green tea for all that ails you. What about the benefits of black tea? Can black tea be used to lower blood glucose?

ANSWER:

Black tea may help to reduce blood glucose because it contains a compound called a polysaccharide. This compound works like the common type 2 diabetes drugs Precose and Glyset in how they slow down glucose absorption in the body. These were the results of a report in the Journal of Food Science.

Black tea contains more of this polysaccharide compound than either green or oolong tea, according to Haixia Chen and colleagues of Tianjin University, China, who conducted the study.

Whether drinking regularly brewed black tea can treat or prevent diabetes remains to be seen since the polysaccharides used in this study were not brewed, rather they were chemically extracted from the tea.


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