Nutrition News Focus - Black Tea and Atherosclerosis Black Tea and Atherosclerosis Green tea has gotten lots of good publicity in recent years for its ability as an antioxidant and its apparent health effects for reducing heart disease and cancer. But most of the world drinks black tea.
Black tea is made from green leaves after fermentation.
In this process, many of the pigmented compounds called flavonoids are modified to other, similar structures. So the total flavonoid content of green and black teas are similar, but the types are different. The range of aortic calcification, diagnosed by an x-ray of the abdomen, was from none to severe. The average range of tea drinking was only between 290 ml and 380 ml, or 2 to 3 cups a day. This type of study produces results that are intriguing but not definitive.