A special type of fermented tea appears to help control blood sugar levels and delay the onset and progression of diabetes, according to reports. new research.
Data released by researchers at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting in Hamburg, Germany, on Monday showed that people who drank “black tea” every day had a 53% lower risk of developing prediabetes and a 47% lower risk of developing diabetes.
How research is done
Scientists from the University of Adelaide in Australia and Southeast University in China examined data from nearly 2,000 adults living across China. Slightly more than half of adults do not have diabetes or prediabetes; about a quarter have prediabetes; and about a quarter have diabetes. Participants were asked how often they drank tea and what type of tea they drank. They also underwent multiple tests, including urine sugar and insulin resistance.
After figuring out the differences in lifestyle factors, researchers found that drinking any tea every day reduced insulin resistance and increased the excretion of glucose in the urine. They also found that daily tea drinkers had a 15% lower risk of developing prediabetes and a 28% lower risk of type 2 diabetes compared with those who never drank tea.
“Our findings suggest that habitual tea drinking has a protective effect on blood sugar management by increasing glucose excretion in urine and improving insulin resistance, thereby leading to better blood sugar control,” said co-lead researcher Dr. Comrade Wu, associate professor. researchers from the University of Adelaide said in a press release.
What is “black tea”?
Wu said “dark tea” consumers have the best results. Contrary to Western thinking, just because tea is black or dark does not mean it is “dark tea”. Dark tea is one of the six major tea categories in my country and the only tea produced by microbial fermentation. According to an article in January in diary Chinese herbal medicine.
According to the article, types of dark tea include:
- Pu’er tea
- Liubao (also known as Liubao or Liupu) tea
- Fuzhuan brick tea
- Qingzhuan brick tea
- Kangzhuan brick tea
Dark tea may be particularly beneficial to the health of study participants due to the fermentation process used to produce it. The researchers suggest that this process may result in potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, improved insulin sensitivity and the performance of insulin-producing cells, and a more diverse gut microbiome.
Can black tea mimic diabetes medications?
The study authors suggest that dark tea may mimic the effects of a relatively new class of diabetes drugs called SGLT-2 inhibitors, which lower blood sugar levels by causing the kidneys to excrete more glucose. Such inhibitors also provide protection to the heart and kidneys.
SGLT-2 inhibitors (brand names Jardiance and Farxiga) are fundamentally different from GLP-1 agonists (such as the popular weight loss and diabetes drugs Wegovy and Ozempic), which increase insulin secretion and reduce food intake.
That’s according to Dr. Utpal Pajvani, associate professor of medicine in the Department of Endocrinology at Columbia University in New York City. While it is an interesting observation that black tea drinkers increase urinary glucose excretion in the same way as SGLT-2 inhibitors, “there is insufficient evidence that drinking black tea produces beneficial effects that mimic this class of drugs,” he told us. wealth.
Additionally, he added, black tea drinkers appeared to excrete very low levels of glucose compared with patients taking SGLT-2 inhibitors.
PhD.Gutierrez SalonSome studies show green tea and coffee may also reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, said associate professor of endocrinology at UTHealth McGovern Medical School in Houston, Texas.
What’s more, a July study published in the journal front Studies have found that drinking the fermented beverage kombucha can lower fasting blood sugar levels.
But “we still need to understand more about the mechanisms of dark tea’s effects on the kidneys,” he said. wealth, Adds that the Mediterranean diet and some of its components – such as nuts, whole grains, fiber, fruits and dairy products – may also reduce the risk of the disease.
Co-lead researcher Dr. Sunzi Lin, director of the Diabetes Research Institute at Southeast University in Nanjing, China, said in a press release that drinking black tea every day “may be a simple step that people can easily take to improve their diet and health.”
Despite their optimism, the researchers cautioned that the study does not prove, but merely shows, that drinking tea daily improves blood sugar control. They are conducting further research to further confirm their findings.
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