Is There Too Much of Good Thing When It Comes to Black Tea?

In findings presented 25 July 2010 at the 2010 International Association of Dental Research Conference, Dr. Gary Whitford who is a professor at the Medical College of Georgia, School of Dentistry said that black tea

This conclusion started with four patients with skeletal fluorosis who had one thing in common. They drank excessive amounts of black tea every day. I love my tea and in the south I know drinking iced tea is a big thing but one to two GALLONS of tea a day?! And they drank it for 10 to 30 years.

This lead the good doctor to trying to find out if black tea actually has more fluoride than the 1 to 5 milligrams per liter previous reports showed. He created a way to actually measure the amount of fluoride including that in aluminum fluoride which previous studies had not been able to measure. That raised the result to “as much as 9 milligrams” per liter.

When you learn that it only takes 20 milligrams daily to become a health hazard, you can understand why drinking over a gallon a day becomes a problem. Of course, the researchers said you had to do this for over 10 years to create the bone and joint problems. Additionally too much fluoride can be a problem to people’s thyroids if they have low iodine intake and if they have kidney disease.

These findings were based on results from seven brands of store bought black tea. Apparently the tea plant absorbs and accumulates large concentrations of fluoride and aluminum. When you steep your black tea, these minerals leach out into the water. If your water source is fluoridated, you are compounding the problem. Guess that makes a good case for bottled water with no added fluoride.

Good News About Black Tea and Theaflavins for Allergies

Now turning to some good news about black tea

Black tea has lots less polyphenols than green tea. This new study focused on theaflavins in black tea instead and particularly two: theaflavin-3-gallate and theaflavin-3,3-digallate (TFDG).

What the study found was these two theaflavins kept mice, or actually their bodies, from producing pro-inflammatory cytokines. That means no or much lowered inflammation in the body.

When the mice were either given an injection or fed the theaflavins, there was "... significant preventive effects against mouse type IV allergy" which also didn't raise the oxidant levels in the mice either. A type IV allergy is known as a "delayed type hypersensitivity" which can cause the allergic response up to 24 hours later. That has to be tough. But if you have it, drinking black tea