Have you sometimes read health studies on green tea and thought that the stuff was just too disgusting to drink, no matter how healthy?
Then you’ll be happy to learn that researchers from Mahidol University in Bangkok have recently published a study in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition that shows that another – much more popular tea – is just as good or even better for treating Type 2 Diabetes.
In fact, it prevents spike in blood sugar even after consuming pure sugar.
Researchers recruited 24 subjects 20-60 year old. Some of them prediabetic and the others with normal glucose control.
They gave them a sugar drink followed by either black tea, or caramel colored water with no health properties.
Those who drank the black tea had much lower glucose levels than those who drank the caramel colored water.
This relationship held for both the prediabetics and the normal subjects, but the effect was larger in the prediabetic group.
In other words, black tea can keep your glucose levels down, even after consuming sugar that will usually spike your blood sugar.
The compound in black tea responsible for this effect is probably the black tea polymerized polyphenol (BTPP), and from previous studies, the authors suggested that it has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and blood pressure-lowering effects, and that it apparently blocks our bodies from absorbing carbohydrates.
In fact, other studies have shown that countries (and areas) where black tea consumption is high have lower type 2 diabetes rate.