Health
Brewing tea removes harmful toxins from water, study finds
Tea is known to be one of the healthiest beverages — and the benefits aren’t just what’s in the cup, but what’s not in it.
The process of brewing tea was shown to remove toxic heavy metals from drinking water in a new study from Northwestern University in Illinois.
For a typical cup of tea — one mug of water and one bag of tea, brewed for three to five minutes — the preparation could remove about 15% of lead from drinking water, the researchers stated in a press release.
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During brewing, heavy metals like lead and cadmium are absorbed by the tea leaves, keeping them from entering the water, according to researchers.
The findings were published in the journal ACS Food Science & Technology this week.
The process of brewing tea was shown to remove toxic heavy metals from drinking water in a new study from Northwestern University in Illinois. (iStock)
“It appears quite likely that the way most people brew their tea can have a measurable impact on lead consumption,” Benjamin Shindel, the study’s first author at Northwestern, told Fox News Digital.
The longer tea is brewed, the more reduction in metal content, he noted.
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“Any tea that steeps for longer or has higher surface area will effectively remediate more heavy metals,” Shindel said.
“Some people brew their tea for a matter of seconds, and they are not going to get a lot of remediation. But brewing tea for longer periods or even overnight – like iced tea – will recover most of the metal or maybe even close to all the metal in the water.”
The longer tea is brewed, the more reduction in metal content, the researchers said. (iStock)
During the study, the researchers tested different types of tea, tea bags and methods of brewing to gauge how well they absorbed lead, chromium, copper, zinc and cadmium.
The absorbent effect was seen across a range of tea types, Shindel noted, even from wood-derived tea bags.
Cellulose tea bags were found to absorb much more than cotton and nylon bags, the researchers found.
For a typical cup of tea, the preparation could remove about 15% of lead from drinking water.
Tea leaves have a “high active surface area” that makes them ideal for absorbing material, according to the researchers.
“Tea leaves with greater surface area, through processing or grinding, may see slightly more metal remediation as well,” he added. “Just put the leaves in your water and steep them, and they naturally remove metals.”
“Lead contamination of drinking water is widespread, even in schools and childcare centers,” one expert told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
The team was surprised by the effects seen after just a short time.
“We weren’t sure whether to expect any meaningful reduction in metal content during the short times that most people brew their tea,” said Shindel.
“We were surprised that even after just a couple of minutes, we were able to see a small but significant amount of metal remediation during the preparation of tea.”
Despite these findings, the researchers cautioned that people should not rely on tea to clean their water.
“We were surprised that even after just a couple of minutes, we were able to see a small but significant amount of metal remediation during the preparation of tea.” (iStock)
“We’re also not public health researchers, so it remains to be seen if the levels of lead reduction we’ve observed in our study will translate to population-wide health benefits,” said Shindel.
“However, I think it’s useful for people to know that brewing tea will, on the margins, reduce one’s consumption of lead content — and perhaps other toxins — from drinking water.”
“After just a couple of minutes, we were able to see a small but significant amount of metal remediation.”
The findings could help explain why populations that drink more tea may have lower incidence rates of heart disease and stroke than populations that have lower tea consumption, Shindel noted.
“Across a population, if people drink an extra cup of tea per day, maybe over time we’d see declines in illnesses that are closely correlated with exposure to heavy metals,” he said.
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John Rumpler, lead author of the study and clean water program director for Environment America, noted that lead is highly toxic for kids.
“Yet lead contamination of drinking water is widespread, even in schools and child care centers,” he told Fox News Digital.
“Brewing tea for longer periods or even overnight – like iced tea – will recover most of the metal or maybe even close to all the metal in the water.” (iStock)
“While I can’t quite read the tea leaves on this new study, we know there are filters certified to remove lead from drinking water,” Rumpler went on.
“Schools and child care centers should be replacing old fountains with lead-filtering water stations and replacing lead pipes wherever they can.”
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The Northwestern study was partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy.
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A new report by the American Heart Association (AHA) included some troubling predictions for the future of women’s health.
The forecast, published in the journal Circulation on Wednesday, projected increases in various comorbidities in American females by 2050.
More than 59% of women were predicted to have high blood pressure, up from less than 49% currently.
The review also projected that more than 25% of women will have diabetes, compared to about 15% today, and more than 61% will have obesity, compared to 44% currently.
As a result of these risk factors, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7%.
The prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke in women is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7% by 2050. (iStock)
Not all trends were negative, as unhealthy cholesterol prevalence is expected to drop to about 22% from more than 42% today, the report stated.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a cardiologist and founder of Step One Foods in Minnesota, commented on these “jarring findings.”
“The fact that on our current trajectory, cardiometabolic disease is projected to explode in women within one generation should be a huge wake-up call,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“Hypertension, diabetes, obesity — these are all major risk factors for heart disease, and we are already seeing what those risks are driving. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, eclipsing all other causes of death, including breast cancer.”
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. and around the world. (iStock)
Klodas warned that heart disease starts early, progresses “stealthily,” and can present “out of the blue in devastating ways.”
The AHA published another study on Thursday revealing one million hospitalizations, showing that heart attack deaths are climbing among adults below the age of 55.
The more alarming finding, according to Klodas, is that young women were found more likely to die after their first heart attack than men of the same age.
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“This is all especially tragic since heart disease is almost entirely preventable,” she said. “The earlier you start, the better.”
Children can show early evidence of plaque deposition in their arteries, which can be reversed through lifestyle changes if “undertaken early enough and aggressively enough,” according to the expert.
Moving more is one part of protecting a healthy heart, according to experts. (iStock)
Klodas suggested that rising heart conditions are associated with traditional risk factors, like smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
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Doctors are also seeing higher rates of preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy, as well as gestational diabetes. Klodas noted that these are sex-specific risk factors that don’t typically contribute to complications until after menopause.
The best way to protect a healthy heart is to “do the basics,” Klodas recommended, including the following lifestyle habits.
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Klodas especially emphasized making improvements to diet, as the food people eat affects “every single risk factor that the AHA’s report highlights.”
“High blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, excess weight – these are all conditions that are driven in part or in whole by food,” she said. “We eat multiple times every single day, which means what we eat has profound cumulative effects over time.”
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health.”
The doctor also recommends changing out a few snacks per day for healthier choices, which has been proven to “yield medication-level cholesterol reductions” in a month.
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“Keep up that small change and, over the course of a year, you could also lose 20 pounds and reduce your sodium intake enough to avoid blood pressure-lowering medications,” Klodas added.
“Women should not view the AHA report as inevitable. We have power over our health destinies. We just need to use it.”
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Nearsightedness (myopia) is skyrocketing globally, with nearly half of the world’s population expected to be myopic by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.
Heavy use of smartphones and other devices is associated with an 80% higher risk of myopia when combined with excessive computer use, but a new study suggests that dim indoor lighting could also be a factor.
For years, scientists have been puzzled by the different ways myopia is triggered. In lab settings, it can be induced by blurring vision or using different lenses. Conversely, it can be slowed by something as simple as spending time outdoors, research suggests.
Nearsightedness occurs when the eyeball grows too long from front to back, according to the American Optometric Association (AOA). This physical elongation causes light to focus in front of the retina rather than directly on it, making distant objects appear blurry.
The study suggests that myopia isn’t caused by the digital devices themselves, but by the low-light environments where they are typically used. (iStock)
Researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Optometry identified a potential specific trigger for this growth. When someone looks at a phone or a book up close, the pupil naturally constricts.
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“In bright outdoor light, the pupil constricts to protect the eye while still allowing ample light to reach the retina,” Urusha Maharjan, a SUNY Optometry doctoral student who conducted the study, said in a press release.
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“When people focus on close objects indoors, such as phones, tablets or books, the pupil can also constrict — not because of brightness, but to sharpen the image,” she went on. “In dim lighting, this combination may significantly reduce retinal illumination.”
High-intensity natural light prevents myopia because it provides enough retinal stimulation to override the “stop growing” signal, even when pupils are constricted. (iStock)
The hypothesis suggests that when the retina is deprived of light during extended close-up work, it sends a signal for the eye to grow.
In a dim environment, the narrowed pupil allows so little light through that the retinal activity isn’t strong enough to signal the eye to stop growing, the researchers found.
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In contrast, being outdoors provides light levels much brighter than indoors. This ensures that even when the pupil narrows to focus on a nearby object, the retina still receives a strong signal, maintaining healthy eye development.
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The team noted some limitations of the study, including the small subject group and the inability to directly measure internal lens changes, as the bright backgrounds used to mimic the outdoors made pupils too small for standard equipment.
Researchers believe that increasing indoor brightness during close-up work could be a simple, testable way to slow the global nearsightedness epidemic. (iStock)
“This is not a final answer,” Jose-Manuel Alonso, MD, PhD, SUNY distinguished professor and senior author of the study, said in the release.
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“But the study offers a testable hypothesis that reframes how visual habits, lighting and eye focusing interact.”
The study was published in the journal Cell Reports.
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