Anyone For A Cuppa?

We all love a nice cup of tea and maybe even a biscuit to go with it on occasions, so it can only be good news to hear how healthy a cuppa can be. Recent research shows that the health giving properties of tea can be greatly beneficial to the more senior citizens among us. However, before you reach for the kettle or ask for cuppa you may have to change the nation’s favourite drink for something a little more exotic, because it’s GREEN TEA that has all the health giving properties.

A report from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and another by the University of Japan found that GREEN tea helps pensioners stay more physically active than their peers who don’t partake of the brew and that coffee and standard tea did not provide this particular health benefit at all.

Researchers tracked the health of almost 14,000 men and women aged 65-plus for three years, noting what they ate and drank and factoring in data on any care they needed. They found that the more green tea they consumed, the more mobile and self-sufficient they were. Those who got through at least five cups a day were 33 per cent less likely to develop a disability than those who drank less than one cup and three to four cups a day cut the risk by 25 per cent. Overall, green tea drinkers fared better as they grew older than the non-drinkers, even taking into account that they generally had healthier diets and lower smoking rates.

It is not clear why green tea gives such a boost to health, but it does contain high levels of polyphenols, plant chemicals thought to cut cholesterol and protect DNA from damage. These are found at much lower levels in normal tea or in coffee.

However, as with many of the so-called health fads, super-foods and wonder drinks there is a down side - the drink should be avoided by those taking the blood-thinning drug warfarin as the vitamin K in it can stop the drug from working properly. We ensure that all the residents taking medication in our homes are monitored closely and would advocate anyone on any medication to read the instructions on their medication very very carefully. All Oakridge staff are trained in the administering of drugs, as anyone working with medications and caring should be, so you can all can all rest assured that anyone taking warfarin will not be drinking green tea with us.

At Oakridge we generally approve of anything that’s going to help our residents live longer, healthier lives, although we have to say dunking a digestive into green tea just isn’t the same. YUK!