Grab another cuppa

Tea as a cure for diabetes? It’s not as far-fetched an idea as you may think it to be. Scientists claim that some elements of black tea, such as theaflavins and thearubigins closely imitate the effect of insulin within our bodies. Many have proclaimed that green tea has several beneficial health properties and now black tea too jumps on this band-wagon. However, don’t jump to any conclusions or jump for joy just yet. These findings were the result of clinical tests carried out in a laboratory and only on culture cells and the results could be deemed merely indicative and not conclusive. It is hard to tell at this early stage whether giving black tea to a human being might affect glucose regulation positively much in the same way as insulin or diabetes medication does. Don’t rush to grab a cup of black tea just yet, the results aren’t in.

In this controlled experiment, researchers probed the possibility of dietary factors playing its part in the chemical pathways in the body involved in monitoring aging and glucose formation and breakdown. Tea, as you might well be aware unless you have just crawled out from under a reasonably sized boulder, is one of the most popular drinks known to mankind and is consumed by millions daily. There is very little definitive knowledge about the actions of polyphenols (antioxidants that help retard cellular damage) on humans, and researchers held out hope that further inroads could be made into how diseases such as diabetes can be delayed or prevented.

Researchers claim that experiments have isolated a group of compounds present within tea that have effects similar to insulin and these are “key downstream effectors of cellular insulin/longevity signalling.” They also said that it remains to be seen whether black tea can sufficiently fight diabetes within the body as effectively as insulin injections but suggest that their findings may lead to the mass production of drugs which can treat the onset of multiple diseases, one among which is diabetes. Go on then, grab that cup of tea. It might or might not be known to help you cure diabetes yet, but you might as well get a head-start just in case the promise of it all is turned into reality.