Drinking dark tea daily may help balance blood sugar levels and stave off Type 2 diabetes, the form of the disease most closely tied to obesity.
Dark tea is an aged tea from China that has gone through an extensive fermentation process and is rich in healthy bacteria or probiotics that may improve gut health. In total, 436 people had diabetes and 352 had prediabetes, while 1,135 had normal blood sugar levels. The researchers then compared the frequency and type of tea with levels of blood sugar or glucose in the urine, insulin resistance and glycemic status.
People with diabetes don’t get rid of excess glucose in their urine, so blood sugar levels can rise, but regular dark tea drinkers seem to instead have significant increases in the amount of blood sugar in their urine. This finding held even after researchers controlled for known diabetes risk factors, including age, ethnicity, weight, smoking status, family history of diabetes and regular exercise.
Edwin Torres is a nurse practitioner who specializes in diabetes care at the Fleischer Institute for Diabetes and Metabolism at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.