Can milk do  your body good when in your tea ? 

Women in a study who drank black tea had improved cardiovascular function -- but that protection vanished if they drank it with milk. Temper the taste of your black tea with lemons instead. Or sip it as the Chinese traditionally do: straight up.

Researchers are not sure why milk may blunt tea's heart-healthy effects, but milk proteins called caseins are possible culprits. Tea is bursting with health-boosting polyphenols, but proteins have been shown to counteract them. In one study, when researchers added a small amount (10 percent) of milk to black tea, it reduced the tea's concentration of catechins -- polyphenols

credited with giving tea its antioxidant punch as well as fighting heart disease and boosting weight loss. The study results may help explain, in part, why tea's heart benefits appear to be missing in the United Kingdom, where milk is usually added to the brew.

It's not a done deal, however. Other studies have concluded that milk has no effect on tea's antioxidant powers. But the conflicting study results may simply be due to the way the scientists measured the good stuff in tea.

In this recent study, researchers measured the effects of tea -- with and without milk -- on blood vessels in the cardiovascular system. Straight black tea helped blood vessels relax and widen, allowing blood to flow more freely. Tea with milk did not produce the same effect.

Chamomile Tea May Have Medicinal Value

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter
 -- Chamomile tea, long touted as a cure-all for the sick or the stressed, may relieve a wide range of health problems, including colds and menstrual cramps.

Elaine Holmes, a chemist with the Imperial College London, and her team used German chamomile, also called manzanilla, whose flowers and leaves are brewed as a flavorful tea. Fourteen volunteers each drank five cups of the tea daily for two weeks.

"There have been many studies on the effects of individual ingredients of chamomile in animal models, but there have been very few studies on the effect of chamomile on human metabolism so far," Holmes said.

Daily urine samples were collected and tested before, during and after the study. A significant increase was found in urinary levels of hippurate, a breakdown product of plant-based compounds known as phenolics. Some of those have been associated with increased antibacterial activity, and this might explain why the tea seems to fight infections associated with colds, the researchers said.

Drinking the tea was also linked with an increase in urinary levels of glycine, an amino acid that has been shown to relieve muscle spasms. That might be why the tea seems to ease menstrual cramps, the researchers said. Glycine also can act as a nerve relaxant, perhaps explaining the tea's sedative value, they added.

Holmes' group found that the levels of both hippurate and glycine remained elevated for up to two weeks after the subjects stopped drinking the tea, so the compounds might work their magic for some time. Oxford Natural Products, a pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and technology company, funded the study.

The report appears in the Jan. 26 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

In other research, scientists have found that tea may have anticancer properties and may help lower cholesterol, among other health benefits.

"Other types of tea may work as well," Holmes said. "We don't know as yet." The chamomile appears to be altering the gut microflora, which leads to an increase in urinary hippurate and glycine, she explained.

"One of the most interesting findings was that the effect of the chamomile tea lasted at least two weeks after the volunteers had stopped drinking the tea," she noted.

The findings are probably a true reflection of the science, said Hasan Mukhtar, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin who has studied green tea and its role in stemming the spread of prostate cancer.

SOURCES: Elaine Holmes, Ph.D., chemist, Imperial College London; Hasan Mukhtar, Helfaer Professor of Cancer Research, and director and vice chairman, research, Department of Dermatology, University of Wisconsin Medical Science Center, Madison; Jan. 26, 2005, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry