NY Times Summarizes Current Studies on the Health Benefits of Tea

The full article can be found here:  http://nyti.ms/1Q0is3O

In brief:

Tea drinking is associated with a lower risk of multiple liver diseases, including a type of liver cancer.

Tea drinking is associated with a lower risk of depression.

Tea drinking is associated with reduction in risk of stroke, cardiac disease, and diabetes.

Drinking green tea, but not black tea, is associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer.

There have been other health claims for tea, but those are not supported by current studies.

Unfortunately, most of these studies have been done in Asia, where daily tea-drinking far outstrips anything in the U.S.  Many of these studies do not have a good study of the dose-response rate (i.e., how much tea do you have to drink before these health benefits occur?)   And, of course, even strong correlation (which is all these studies have tracked so far) does not prove causation.

But, I think we can safely conclude that drinking real tea certainly isn't bad for you.   I withhold judgment on Lipton.   :-)