Ever since I was 14 years old, I have loved tea. I first started off with herbal tea and then I eventually found green tea. Sencha with stevia quickly became my all time favorite thing to drink. #tealover
I recently began to drink three cups a day of green tea after taking a hiatus from it. The other day when I was enjoying some Immunity tea from Tea Republic (see here: https://www.republicoftea.com/organic-immunity-supergreen-tea-bags/p/v20369/ ) I wondered about whether or not the intake of this plant has any affect on our hormones-good or bad.
I decided to do some research on this topic to see if there are any scientific articles written on tea in relation to hormones.
Different types of tea are made from the plant
I wanted to give a quick background on the camellia sinensis plant and the teas that come from it. Remember that I am not a scientist, I am just a woman who loves to read about health related topics. If I don't get something right, please don't hesitate to correct me!
The camellia sinensis plant is native to southeastern Asia. It needs to be grown in well-drained soil and partial shade. The leaves are used to produce a variety of teas. If you are interested in growing this plant at home, you will need to be patient and let it grow for a few years before using the leaves.
The following is an infographic showing the different types of teas and their alleged benefits:
After creating this infographic, I realized that I left yellow tea out. It is complicated to make thus being rare and expensive. The taste is mellow and slightly sweet. The benefits are considered as being the same as all other types of the camellia sinensis teas. #health
These benefits that have been mentioned sound great and there are even more that I did not put in the infographic. The unfortunate part is that even though there are studies showing tea doing all of these things, the evidence is still limited.
Hormones specifically
With the knowledge of the tea evidence being limited, I still was interested in tea and if it interacts with our hormones. The times I have felt the best in my life were in my "tea phases" where I would consume 3-5 cups per day. I have been curious to know if there is some kind of correlation to drinking it and my hormones being more balanced.
I ended up finding several articles on green tea consumption and estrogen metabolism. There is some evidence to suggest that it changes how women metabolize it and thus decreases the risk of breast cancer. It must be mentioned though that the studies were done on only postmenopausal women.
These articles about breast cancer were the only ones I could find relating tea to hormones. To me, this means that tea could possibly do other things to our hormones but it just hasn't been looked into yet.
I came across a couple blog articles saying that green tea balances hormones. I do not believe that it is ethical to be saying that because there is not hard evidence supporting that claim. #hormones
In conclusion
This was a really short post! I didn't find much about tea and what it does to our hormones. All I really know is that I like to drink green tea. I have been feeling better lately (physically) since starting back up with it. Maybe it is just a coincidence?
I really hope that there is more research done on these teas. It would be nice to see some scientifically sound conclusions as to whether or not tea has any health benefits beyond hydration and slight energy increases.
Do any of you like to drink tea? What is your favorite kind? How does it make you feel?
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