Why tea is harmful: 6 unexpected findings of scientists

There are few doubts about the benefits of tea: billions of Asians who have been drinking this hot drink for millennia cannot be wrong. Tea perfectly quenches thirst and invigorates, lowers cholesterol and normalizes the work of the cardiovascular system, slows down aging and even makes you smarter.

Sometimes, herbal tea shows good signs of improving your love life as well. Do not believe it? Just check out honeymoon tea review review and you will understand everything.

However, the abundance of pluses does not at all exclude minuses.

1. Hot tea can cause bleeding
British otolaryngologist and plastic surgeon Henry Sharpe thinks Tea could be bad for your health that the habit of drinking hot tea can have a bad effect on the vessels of the nasopharynx. The steam from the cup causes them to expand and often causes nosebleeds.

In addition, there is Tea drinking habits and esophageal cancer in a high-risk area in northern Iran: population-based case-control study that hot tea may increase the risk of esophageal cancer. Fortunately, not everyone agrees with her.

In any case, the optimal temperature of the drink is considered to be 50-60 ° C. To achieve the ideal, a cup of freshly brewed drink is enough to stand for 5-7 minutes at room temperature.

2. Too strong tea destroys teeth and bones

The New England Journal of Medicine published the stories of several patients who suffered from the habit of drinking too strong a drink. So, the case of 47-year-old women Skeletal Fluorosis Due to Excessive Tea Drinking, for 17 years, daily treated to tea, brewed from 100-150 bags. In a relatively short period of time, she lost almost all of her teeth and acquired excessive fragility of her bones.

These are the symptoms of skeletal Fluorosis... It is caused by the accumulation of fluoride in the bones, including from strong tea.

It is clear that not everyone will pour so much strong tea into themselves, but it is still worth remembering about the measure. Nutritionists recommend that you consume no more than 4-5 cups a day.

3. Tea may contain heavy metals

In 2013, the Canadian Journal of Toxicology published the results. The Benefits and Risks of Consuming Brewed Tea a large number of tea bags samples from different regions of the planet.

Toxicologists found heavy metals in the samples, in particular lead, aluminum, arsenic and cadmium. It is assumed that metals get into tea leaves due to soil contamination: often plantations are located, for example, near non-ecological coal-fired power plants.

The concentration of metals in a beverage depends on the brewing time. If the sachet is in water for 15-17 minutes, the level of toxic substances rises to unsafe (for example, in some samples the concentration of aluminum was up to 11 449 μg / L with an allowable daily maximum of 7,000 μg / L).

Scientists have concluded: the longer the tea is brewed, the more of any nasty stuff is washed out of the leaves into the water. Therefore, do not insist on the drink for more than 3 minutes.

Another option is to give preference to white tea. Its leaves are plucked very young, which means that they do not have time to accumulate a critical dose of heavy metals.

4. Sometimes tea is bad for the liver

Herbal teas often accumulate pyrrolizidine alkaloids, toxins produced by some species of flowering plants. For example, a seemingly harmless mother and stepmother.

These toxins negatively affect the body as a whole, but their main target is liver. Toxicity and metabolism of pyrrolizidine alkaloids... In 2015, the American magazine Food Chemistry published the results.
Pyrrolizidine alkaloids in herbal teas for infants, pregnant or lactating women 44 samples of herbal teas intended for babies, pregnant and lactating women.

Scientists have found pyrrolizidine alkaloids in 86% of the samples.
In principle, the dose of toxins that can actually be obtained from tea (with moderate consumption, naturally) is practically safe for an adult. The situation is different with infants and pregnant and lactating women.

Due to the low body weight, an infant and even an unborn baby are more vulnerable to toxins that get to them from their mother.

5. Drinking tea after meals can lead to iron deficiency
Research from the University of California in 2011 proved Iron deficiency anemia due to excessive green tea drinking: tea "binds" the iron taken from food, significantly impairing its absorption by the body. If you regularly drink tea after meals, you can drink to the glandular deficiency, which is fraught with unpleasant consequences: from deterioration of the skin, hair, lethargy to iron deficiency anemia, which will have to be dealt with with a doctor.

Therefore, doctors recommend Effect of tea and other dietary factors on iron absorptiondo not drink breakfast, lunch or dinner with your favorite drink. At least 20 minutes should pass before tea drinking.

6. Tea provokes insomnia

Caffeine and aromatic substances are to blame for this, for which we, in fact, love tea. The invigorating effect of the drink has a physiological basis: the pulse quickens, blood flow accelerates, the adrenal glands secrete more Caffeine affect blood pressure, the central nervous system and the brain become agitated whereas the back pain can be reduced. In the morning or in the midst of a working day, tea is just a godsend!

But in the evening, tea overexcitement can interrupt your entire sleep. If you really want a tea at night, it is better to limit yourself to herbal drinks, the content of caffeine in which is reduced in comparison with black and especially green tea.