Time 4 Tea

by: Pm - October 24th, 2007

By now, it’s commonly understood that tea is good for you. Like coffee, red wine, and produce, tea is packed with polyphenols. For those of you who haven’t read my previous posts (i.e., Eat the Rainbow, Make Mine a Quintuple or Sextuple, Quell Illness with Quercetin), polyphenols are plant-based compounds (often color pigments) that provide protective, non-traditional nutrition benefits. Case in point, black tea & glucose metabolism.

New research from England’s King’s College London and University of Central Lancashire suggests that as little as one gram of instant black tea may be all that’s needed to reduce blood sugar levels and stimulate an insulin response.

For the 4-way, randomized, cross-over trial study, researchers gathered 16 healthy subjects and assigned them to one of four groups. The first group was instructed to drink 75 g of glucose in 8 oz of water; the second, 75 g of glucose + 52 mg of caffeine in 8 oz of water; the third group 75 g of glucose + 1 g of instant black tea in 8 oz of water; and group number 4 drank a solution of 75 g of glucose + 3 g of instant black tea in 8 oz of water.

Although the black tea did not initially impact blood sugar levels, after 90 minutes, those drinking the black tea had significantly higher circulating insulin levels. So, as you might expect, after 120 minutes, the tea drinking groups also had lower blood glucose levels. Researchers attribute the favorable glucose disposal attributes to one or more of the four principal polyphenols found in tea leaves, namely, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate, and/or epicatechin.

So, what’s this all mean? Why is this potentially useful to the R.A. crowd? Simple, carbohydrates are the preferred fuel of muscles during high-intensity activity. Run your glycogen stores dry and your performance will ultimately suffer for it. Taking it a bit further, to get glucose from the bloodstream into your muscles, you need insulin.

Like just about everything else in life, a little insulin is good (actually essential), too much insulin is not. Without insulin (a condition known as Type 1 diabetes), you’d quickly die …literally starve in a sea of sugary blood. Spike your insulin too often and you might pick up nicknames like “Stay Fluff” and “Michelin.” You see, while insulin is anabolic, it can also lead to fat storage if over-stimulated (hence the bad rap that some carbs get). By strategically elevating insulin at the appropriate times, right before, during, immediately after exercise, you can take advantage of your body’s naturally heightened anabolic responsiveness without packing on the pudge.

We already know that high-quality, fast-acting whey proteins, high-G.I., high-density carbohydrates including dextrose, waxy maize starch, and maltodextrin, and essential amino acids like leucine elevate insulin. We also know that the very act of training heightens insulin production and receptor sensitivity. Thanks to this novel research, we now have yet another way to increase glycogen resynthesis at our disposal: drinking black tea before or during workouts.

…till next time.

Happy Heaving,

PM

Source: Bryans, J., Judd, P.A., Ellis, P.R. "The Effect of Consuming Instant Black Tea on Postprandial Plasma Glucose and Insulin Concentrations in Healthy Humans" Journal of the American College of Nutrition Volume 26, Number 5, Pages 471-477

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