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Tea: Beverage, Medicine, or Both?

by Cheryl Myers | November 11, 2015

Medicinal teas have been used for at least 60,000 years, since yarrow has been found in ancient Neanderthal burial sites. Tea is speculated to be the first “created” beverage consumed by humans. While we may never know for sure, early tea was likely consumed for taste and delight as well as for medicinal properties. So it could be said that tea is the most time-tested of all natural medicines.

Ethnobotanists tell us that many kinds of herbs once used to brew tea and other potions have become extinct, so we may never savor the flavors and benefit from the healing properties that were once experienced by our earliest ancestors. It is maddening to those who work in botanical medicine to imagine the riches that have been lost. An important point in environmental conservation is that loss of plant species is not just about aesthetics—a pretty prairie flower being lost, or a bit of moss disappearing from a landscaped garden—it is about eliminating a plant medicine that might have been profoundly beneficial for all people everywhere.

Fortunately, there is still a bounty of herbs that can be used in teas for a wide variety of health concerns. In fact, there are too many to be reviewed in this article, so we will focus on just a few popular herbs. But for clarity’s sake, I want to state that I am defining tea as any botanical soaked in hot water to yield a beverage. Some would argue that tea is defined as black, white, or green tea, brewed from the leaves of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis, which is actually in the evergreen family. And while black, green, and white tea have health properties, in this article I am going to discuss herbal teas.

Chamomile

Herbal teas are not always brewed from the leaves of the plant. For example, chamomile is brewed form the dried flowers that resemble tiny daisies. In addition to being quite tasty, chamomile is well known for its ability to promote relaxation and positive mood. This has been borne out in studies that have shown this tea can also promote sleep and reduce nervous tension. It has even been tested in people with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and found to reduce anxiety.

Herbal teas rarely confer a single benefit. One might use chamomile tea with a little honey to relax before bed, but gain additional side benefits, such as a mild impact on reducing inflammation and some antioxidant protection. A study published just this year found that older adults living in Mexico who reported regular consumption of chamomile tea had (on average) a longer life span than those who did not.

Dandelion

As Ralph Waldo Emerson famously stated, “A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.” If that is true, then dandelions should no longer be considered weeds. Not only are they edible, they provide great health benefits, including acting as a natural diuretic. A diuretic helps the body release excess water and reduce edema and bloating. It is useful for things as simple as PMS-related water retention, or more significant edema related to reduced heart muscle function. Also, increasing elimination of water may decrease high blood pressure. Diuretic drugs that lower blood pressure also reduce potassium, which can cause significant adverse effects. However, dandelion is rich in potassium and does not display the same adverse effects found with diuretic drugs.

Dandelion is also soothing to the gall bladder. Bile is made by the liver and stored in the gall bladder, where it is stored until it is released into the contents of the intestines as food in the process of digestion travels through the gut. If the gall bladder is irritated or inflamed, increasing bile flow can be soothing, and dandelion has been shown to improve bile flow. Dandelion also contains antioxidants and phytonutrients that help protect against cancer and other diseases.

Nettles

It may not sound appetizing to brew a tea of stinging nettles, since skin contact with the raw leaf causes a rash, discomfort, itching and redness. However, the compounds that give stinging nettle its name are neutralized with cooking and steeping in hot water, yielding a mild-flavored tea that is rich in phytonutrients with significant health benefits.

Nettle tea improves urinary output, so there is a small diuretic effect associated with kidney cleansing. It also increases removal of uric acid from the body, which helps reduce flare-ups of gout, a condition in which uric acid crystals congregate at the joint and cause swelling, inflammation and sometimes excruciating pain. Along with cherry fruit, nettle is an excellent tea for individuals with gout or who have had gout in the past.

Nettle is rich in minerals, with more than ten times the calcium and magnesium of spinach. However, many people seek out nettle tea for its silica content. Silica is a mineral well known for its use as a beauty product, because it helps create strong nails, beautiful skin, and thicker, more lustrous hair. That’s because silica is required by the body to make collagen, a natural hair, skin and nails building block. As we age, collagen is lost, resulting in thinner, brittle hair and slowed hair growth, flaking fingernails, and problematic skin. Studies have shown that boosting silica in the body boosts collagen production, which is used by all these tissues.

Bone is also dependent upon collagen for strength and function. If you imagine bone as a brick wall, calcium is the brick, but collagen is the mortar that holds the bricks together. Without silica, no collagen can be formed, and bones weaken. There are synthetic silicas on the market, including forms like orthosilicic acid, but many prefer plant-based silicas for supplementation. They are more natural, and may work synergistically with other compounds found in nettles for a broader spectrum of benefits.

Last, but not least, nettle tea has been shown to be effective in helping people with allergies. While it has long been used in folk medicine to treat allergies, there is not a great deal of research published on using this botanical for this application. However, nettle contains the flavonoids quercetin, rutin and kaempferol. Quercetin has been investigated for quieting hay fever and has been found to help normalize histamine release. Rutin and kaempferol have also been studied for their anti-allergic activity, so extrapolating that a plant that contains all these compounds itself is also anti-allergic is not such a far logical leap.

Kava

Kava is an amazing botanical that shot to superstardom and then fell from its lofty perch when lawsuits regarding its safety started to be pressed. This is extremely unfortunate, because it has been demonstrated that some of the individuals alleging liver problems related to kava were also exposed to prescription drugs/illegal drugs and/or alcohol, which have documented liver toxicities. It was also theorized that there may have been contamination with adulterants in some formulas, and even the type of solvents used might be problematic.

There was never enough evidence to ban kava as a supplement and tea, but many purveyors of this effective herb were not able to keep it in their line of products due to certain financial considerations. One of the blessings of the internet is almost instantaneous widespread distribution of information. It is also the curse of the internet. More and more mainstream websites added kava to their list of unsafe herbs, or overly dramatized the potential adverse effects. More than 30,000 people become seriously ill or even die with the use of acetaminophen, ibuprofen and aspirin, and yet these products remain widely available. The indigenous peoples of the South Pacific have used kava safely for many hundreds of years. However, it turns out that people with a specific, uncommon genetic polymorphism may react poorly to kava. For the vast majority of people, used in moderation, it is very safe and highly effective for even severe anxiety disorders. Ironically, the National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine Database for liver toxicity (LiverTox) has actually come to kava’s defense. While they urge caution until more is known, they state, “the literature on liver injury from kava has included several incomplete or overlapping reports, and causality was rarely well shown.”

Kava also has some preliminary investigation for use as a narcotic potentiater. When an individual is in very severe pain, for example an end-stage cancer patient, narcotics are often used to control the pain. However, with continued use, the narcotics lose effectiveness, and ever-higher doses are required. Higher doses mean more adverse effects from the drug. So some doctors have postulated that using kava along with these drugs may help enhance their effectiveness and reduce dosage escalations of narcotics. Simply put, kava may partner with the pain medicine to make the cancer pain go away. This needs much more study before becoming a recommended medical practice, but it is an interesting development for a very old herb used in teas and beverages. When choosing a kava tea, you might note whether it contains kavalactones, and if so, what percentage. While all kava tea likely has some effect, higher levels or kavalactones are associated with more powerful benefits. VR

References:

Sarris, J; Panossian, A; Schweitzer, I; Stough, C; Scholey, A. Herbal medicine for depression, anxiety, and insomnia: a review of psychopharmacology and clinical evidence. European neuropsychopharmacology 21 (12): 841–860. Dec. 2011 Amsterdam JD, Li Y, Soeller I, Rockwell K, Mao JJ, Shults J. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of oral Matricaria recutita (chamomile) extract therapy for generalized anxiety disorder. J Clin Psychopharmacol. 2009 Aug;29(4):378-82.

Howrey BT, Peek MK, McKee JM, Raji MA, Ottenbacher KJ, Markides KS. Chamomile Consumption and Mortality: A Prospective Study of Mexican Origin Older Adults. Gerontologist. 2015 Apr 29.

Clare BA, Conroy RS, Spelman K. The diuretic effect in human subjects of an extract of Taraxacum officinale folium over a single day. J Altern Complement Med. 2009 Aug;15(8):929-34.

Natural Medicine Comprehensive Database. Stinging Nettles. Available at: http://naturaldatabase.therapeuticresearch.com/nd/PrintVersion.aspx?id=664. Accessed Sept. 30, 2015. Oh HA, Han NR, Kim MJ, Kim HM, Jeong HJ. Evaluation of the effect of kaempferol in a murine allergic rhinitis model. Eur J Pharmacol. 2013 Oct 15;718(1-3):48-56. doi: 10.1016/j.ejphar.2013.08.045.

Kim HY, Nam SY, Hong SW, Kim MJ, Jeong HJ, Kim HM. Protective effects of rutin through regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor in allergic rhinitis. Am J Rhinol Allergy. 2015 May-Jun;29(3):e87-94. Hattori M, Mizuguchi H, Baba Y, Ono S, Nakano T, Zhang Q, Sasaki Y, Kobayashi M, Kitamura Y, Takeda N, Fukui H. Quercetin inhibits transcriptional up-regulation of histamine H1 receptor via suppressing protein kinase.

C-δ/extracellular signal-regulated kinase/poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 signaling pathway in HeLa cells. Int Immunopharmacol. 2013 Feb;15(2):232-9.

Sarris J, Stough C, Bousman CA, Wahid ZT, Murray G, Teschke R, Savage KM, Dowell A, Ng C, Schweitzer I. Kava in the treatment of generalized anxiety disorder: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study. J Clin Psychopharmacol. 2013 Oct;33(5):643-8.

Kava kava. National Institutes of Health, United States Library of Medicine LiverTox database. Available at: http://livertox.nih.gov/KavaKava.htm. Accessed on Sept. 30, 2015

Cheryl Myers is an integrative health nurse, author, and an expert on natural medicine. She is a nationally recognized speaker who has been interviewed by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Prevention magazine. Her many articles have been published in such diverse journals as Aesthetic Surgery Journal and Nutrition in Complementary Care, and her research on botanicals has been presented at the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the North American Menopause Society. Myers is the head of Scientific Affairs and Education for EuroPharma, Inc.

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