5 Health Benefits Of Tea To Make You Live Longer

Did you just read that right? Drinking tea makes you live longer? There are so many health benefits of tea drinking but did you know that it can actually lead to living a longer life!

I mean Queen Elizabeth was one the world’s longest reigning monarchs, passing away in 2022 at 96 years old. She was on the record saying that she drinks tea every day. Clearly her daily afternoon cuppa is why she went strong for so long – do you really need any more proof than that!?

If you said yes, then continue reading for actual facts of how drinking tea makes you live longer.

Psst! This blog post contains affiliate links in it which sends me a bit of extra money if you use them… at no extra cost to you!

Health Benefits Of Tea

As it turns out, there are a lot of health benefits of tea that can to longevity. From helping fight off diseases to minimizing the risk of cancer. Studies have also shown that countries that drink the most tea have the highest life expectancies.

Most of the reasons why tea drinkers live longer comes down to tea having what are called flavonoids…

Tea Drinkers Live Longer Thanks To Flavonoids – The Super Antioxidant

A flavonoid is really just a beast antioxidant.

Antioxidants clear our body of free radicals (a.k.a. cell damage). Flavonoids are a group of antioxidants that go beyond detoxifying our bodies. They actually have antihistamine, antimicrobial, memory- and even mood-enhancing properties.

Flavonoids occur naturally from plants, which explains why tea has so much of it. It’s also the reason why our parents always told us to finish our fruits and veggies. But little did they know they should’ve given you tea instead!

The amount of flavonoids in fruits and veggies doesn’t even come close to what tea has. In only two cups of tea (black, oolong or green), you get your daily amount.

Read more about Flavonoids here. 

Best Tea For Longevity: Drink Green Tea Live Longer

All teas from the Camelia sinensis plant (black, green, oolong, white, dark) contain flavanoids and health benefits to live longer. But, green tea often gets pulled out of the pack for being the best tea with the most health benefits.

Green tea is often the least processed leaf from the types of teas. This leads to the health benefits being greater (you loose some during oxidization). Another reason why green tea is often seen as so much healthier is because of Matcha.

Matcha is a type of green tea where the leaves are shade grown and crushed into a powder. Shade grown leaves, again, develop more health benefits than when the leaves are exposed to the sun. When you prepare matcha, you also end up drinking the powder (ingesting all the leaves and their benefits) instead of simply steeping them).

5 Ways Drinking Tea Makes You Live Longer

1. Tea Builds Up Our Immune System

Drinking tea makes you live longer because it also has a chemical that’s found in some bacteria, tumours, parasites, and fungi. You might be thinking this is a bad thing… wrong! That chemical is alkylamine antigens.

By drinking tea, you expose your body to this chemical. This is good because your body is able to build up a tolerance to it.

So now thanks to tea you have a beast immune system that has a higher defence towards alkylamine antigen. You might take your young immune system for granted, but as we age, these small infections can become harder to fight off.

2. Drinking Tea Reduces Our Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease

On top of being able to ward off certain infections, drinking tea makes you live longer by lowering your risk of dying from certain diseases. Like liver, respiratory, but mainly cardiovascular diseases.

For our heart health, flavonoids prevent the oxidization of the LDL cholesterol particles. This particle is necessary for the progression of heart disease.

And the specific flavonoid compound, EGCG, prevents plaque build-up in the arteries. Which can later lead to heart attacks.

The lower caffeine levels that tea has also plays a role in reducing deaths from cardiovascular disease. Caffeine levels in coffee have the ability to speed up our heart rate quite a bit. Because tea has less, our heart rate can never be sped up as much.

Learn more about how EGCG works. Read about the studies showing a lower risk of cardiovascular disease with more tea consumption here.

3. Drinking Tea For Longevity Helps Protect You Against Cancer

Research shows that the rates of many cancers are a lot lower in Asia than in other parts of the world. And we know that the Japanese drink a lot of tea. So is there any connection?

We already know that flavonoids help repair damaged cells known as free radicals. Cancer cells are damaged cells. So then, why wouldn’t tea help prevent, or even stop the growth of cancer?

Several studies found drinking green tea reduced your risk of developing certain cancers. Like the risk of breast cancer was reduced by 22 %. It showed an even bigger reduced risk for men developing prostate cancer. And a study of 70 000 people found the risk of colorectal cancer was reduced by 57%.

It can also help you get rid of cancer… read more about that here.

4. Tea Can Help Fight Memory Loss

One of the biggest signs of ageing is memory loss. But what if you could not only stop it from happening but also reverse the effects by just drinking tea!?

It’s already been proven that antioxidants can help fight signs of dementia. And tea is loaded with them.

But even more than that, tea has the flavonoid compound EGCG. This compound not only stops plaque buildup in our arteries but also in our brain. It decreases the build-up of beta-amyloid plaque, and can even reverse it. Which, is the main cause for memory loss.

This study was conducted on mice. But they should be starting human trials soon. Read more about it here.

5. Drinking Tea Easily Adds To Your Daily Water Consumption

The simplicity of this benefit is bliss. Water is healthy for you, humans are mostly made up of water (2/3 to be exact). Everyone knows they should be drinking more of it, but sometimes it’s hard to.

FYI – tea is water! Drinking tea is such an easy way to add to you daily water consumption. By drinking tea, you’re replenishing your water and staying hydrated.

Staying hydrated actually helps us to live a longer life because as it turns out, as we age, it’s harder to stay hydrated. So that daily cup can actually go a long way.

Read more here. 

So maybe it’s the tea that’s what helped the queen live so long, or maybe it’s the daily swig of whiskey she has at supper. I guess we’ll never know!

Quick Links – My Amazon Tea Favourites

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Last update on 2024-06-29 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API