Does Drinking Tea Reduce Inflammation?

Chronic inflammation is a nagging issue that has plagued the United States in recent years, with diet playing a key role. Research shows that inflammation-based afflictions such as Crohn’s disease and obesity affect millions in the United States today. One way proven to reduce inflammation is removing processed foods and sugar from your diet, as well as drinking beverages that contain the needed antioxidants to reduce bodily inflammation and pain. Several types of teas, green tea, black tea, oolong tea, and white tea, have all been proven to reduce inflammation in their own respective ways. Green tea is known to reduce inflammation in the heart leading to the prevention of the development of cardiovascular diseases. In contrast, Earl Grey tea, a type of black tea, has been shown to soothe specifically the aches and pains of inflammation in the digestive system. This begs the question, do high tea consumption countries have a lower rate of inflammatory diseases, such as Crohn’s disease and obesity, than the US? We, therefore, decided to look at Japan, India, and China.

Though tea consumption is gradually increasing in the United States today, coffee is still the morning beverage of choice for most American citizens. Coffee has integrated itself into American culture through the popularity of meeting at local shops or popular coffee chains like Dunkin and Starbucks. According to findings, about eighteen percent of Americans choose tea as their beverage each morning. The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation estimates that Crohn’s disease may affect nearly 780,000 Americans. Nearly one out of three US adults are obese, the epidemic affecting 100.1 million adults and 14.7 million children. The United States is known for its dependence on cheap, processed food and artificially sweetened beverages that can lead to a plethora of long-term health issues. Many people have begun to promote the consumption of tea, especially green tea, to reduce the inflammation associated with a typical American diet. 

Green tea accounts for most of the tea consumption by citizens in Japan, followed by black and oolong tea as well. A survey conducted in 2014 found that Crohn’s disease afflicted 2 out of every 100,000 Japanese citizens. Additionally, only 0.9% of Japanese men and 2.3% of Japanese women are obese. This may be as a result of the plant-based diets of Japanese, which includes green tea as a non-sugary beverage to be consumed during and between meals. Japanese diets typically consist of clean, non-processed food such as rice, vegetables, soybeans, and seafoods. The inclusion of tea into a model Japanese diet makes for an overall healthy population, even in light of Western influence in food and culture.

Traditional Chinese and Indian medicine is known to use green tea to aid digestion, improve heart health, and regulate body temperature. But today, the most popular tea in India is chai, which contains two active anti-inflammatory ingredients in ginger and cinnamon. The average Indian drinks about 3 cups of chai daily. In terms of overall population, around 64% of Indians drink tea regularly. Crohn’s disease is considered “rare” in India, as there are estimated to be about seven cases for every 100,000 persons. Between 2019 and 2021 from the ages of 15-49, around 24% of women and 22.9% of men were obese in India. This rate, though still lower than Western countries, has increased over the past few years as mainly a result of lifestyle and workplace changes that demand hours of sedentary work. 

Nearly one-third of Chinese drink tea every day. Like Japan, green tea has found its rightful place in Chinese medicine and culture since thousands of years ago and remains an extremely important beverage today. As of 2019, the incidence rate of Crohn’s disease was estimated to be 0.51–1.09 cases per 100,000 persons in China. On the contrary, nearly 1 out of every 7 adults in China meet the criteria for obesity. Evolving lifestyle changes and increasing modernization has increased the rate of this disease, but it still is viewed as a small percentage compared to the over thirty percent of Americans who grapple with obesity.