Last month, Oprah Winfrey (of whom I am a huge fan) welcomed onto her show Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Michael Roizen. These two doctors were discussing something very near and dear to my heart, tea. Specifically, they were talking about the best things you can do and foods you can eat/drink to help fight aging.

Included on the list was antioxidant-rich items such as blueberries, broccoli, acai, and (of course) tea. In fact, they said that drinking 3-4 cups a day was one of the best ways to keep you looking younger and living longer.

One fact that they left out, which I feel is very important to know, is that this does not include milk. So many people are used to drinking their tea with milk (I cringe at the thought of ruining my beautiful cuppa by drowning it with 2%), it is important to mention that adding any milk will block the body from absorbing virtually all of the antioxidants.

But what exactly are antioxidants? Why are they so good for anti-aging? To explain, Dr. Oz compared apples to apples”one half of an apple was sprinkled with lemon juice and the other was not. While the lemony half remained new and crisp-looking, the untreated half became brown and shriveled because of exposure to oxygen (not surprisingly a process known as oxidation). The same thing happens to our skin, to our heart, to our eyes, Dr. Oz said. All of our bodies need to have the antioxidants.

The team then goes on to say that one can further increase the anti-aging benefits by coupling it with a reasonable exercise regimen, which (embarrassingly enough to Oprah) includes having sex at least 2 or 3 times a week. While I energetically agree with this, I must stress that I do not recommend drinking your tea at the same time.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Benefits of Tea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.