3 heart-healthy benefits of drinking tea

Tea is the second most popular beverage in the world, after water. But more than its enjoyable flavour and soothing warmth, it's these three heart-healthy benefits that should encourage you to drink up.

Drinking tea appears to benefit the heart mainly by helping to improve how the blood vessels function.

• Tea's massive stash of antioxidants appears to encourage the blood vessels to dilate wider and more efficiently, which in turn promotes good circulation.
• One study of 50 heart disease patients at an American hospital found that drinking between three to four cups (about 750 ml to 1 L) of tea per day helped return impaired blood vessel function – the result of heart disease –back to near-normal levels according to ultrasound tests that measured blood flow.

Tea's catechins, part of a larger class of antioxidants called flavonoids, are believed to play a starring role.

• When Dutch scientists evaluated the flavonoid content of the diets of more than 800 men over age 65, they found that tea was the leading source of this important antioxidant and that men who consumed the most flavonoids cut their risk of heart disease by 58 per cent.
• Another study of more than 700 men and women found that people who regularly sipped one cup (250 ml) or more of tea per day reduced their chances of having a heart attack by up to  44 per cent.
• A team of doctors and scientists at several Boston hospitals found that people who drank two cups (500 ml) or more of tea per day were 39 per cent more likely to survive heart attacks.

One study found that green tea can help increase the number of calories you burn in a day. Another found that people who drank tea at least once a week for more than 10 years had almost 20 per cent lower body fat than people who seldom drank tea. Remarkably, this was even after taking into account other lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise. The benefits of staying slim for your heart?

• Over the long term less wear and tear on your muscles and joints.
• Reduced odds of getting heart disease.
• Diminished chance of developing diabetes or insulin resistance.

Although tea alone can't ward off cardiovascular illness, adding it to your diet or increasing the amount you consume may help play a role in keeping your heart healthier, along with exercise, good nutrition and plenty of rest.