Health

Tea Leaves Can Steep Away Lead, Study Finds

Published

12 months ago

February 28, 2025

Tea Leaves Can Steep Away Lead, Study Finds

Tea leaves pull heavy metals from water, significantly lowering the amount of lead and other dangerous compounds that people may be unknowingly drinking, a new study found.

Recent research has highlighted potential applications for used tea leaves, from biofuels to gluten-free cookies. But the new study shows a public health benefit from something that countless people are already doing. About five billion cups of tea are consumed each day around the world, according to one estimate.

“You can see the implications,” said Vinayak Dravid, a materials scientist at Northwestern and an author of the study, which was published this week. “How often do we touch billions of people?”

In many countries, the water used to steep tea is contaminated with lead from aging pipes. In the United States, nine million homes get their water through pipes that contain lead, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Lead is especially dangerous to children. Exposure can lead to developmental delays and behavioral issues.

Dr. Dravid and his team tested how different types of tea — black, white, oolong, green, rooibos, herbal, loose leaf and plain old Lipton — behaved in water with varying amounts of lead.

The tea was then allowed to steep for variable periods of time. Afterward, the scientists measured how much lead remained in the water.

Compounds called catechins in tea leaves act like “little Velcro” hooks to which lead molecules latch, said Michelle Francl, a chemist at Bryn Mawr College and the author of a book on the chemistry of tea. Dr. Francl also said that the “ridges and valleys” of the tea leaves provided the necessary surface area for that interaction.

While those properties have been known for some time, Dr. Dravid and his colleagues were the first to look at the lead-detoxifying powers of a single cup of tea. They found that black tea leaves became wrinkled after roasting and were thus best equipped to absorb heavy metals.

“Green tea and black tea had fairly equivalent amounts of metal absorbed,” said another author, Benjamin Shindel, who was a doctoral candidate at Northwestern while working on the study.

White tea, on the other hand, undergoes a much more gentle preparation. Its leaves remain smooth, offering less surface area from which to draw heavy metals from water. Herbal tea enthusiasts may be disappointed to learn that chamomile tea does a poor job of heavy-metal filtering, too, probably because it is made with chamomile flowers, not tea leaves.

Still, these distinctions between different types of tea were not the most relevant factor. “It’s much more important how long you’re brewing the tea for,” Dr. Shindel said.

The researchers found that steeping a cup of black tea for five minutes could remove 15 percent of lead from the water, which is helpful, but there is “no safe level” of lead exposure, according to the E.P.A.

“With lead and other contaminants, any decrease is meaningful to some extent, especially if you have a lack of resources or infrastructure that would already remediate some of these problem materials,” said Caroline Harms, who was an undergraduate student of Dr. Dravid at Northwestern while working on the study.

The longer the steeping time, however, the more bitter the resulting tea. Last year, Dr. Francl caused a minor international scandal by suggesting that adding salt to tea could mitigate its bitterness. But even that controversial chemistry hack has its limits. “It’s not really drinkable after 10 minutes of steeping tea, and no amount of salt is going to help that,” she said.

Some samples in the study had to be steeped for 24 hours, which would render the tea undrinkable.

The study’s authors said they were less motivated to make public health prescriptions for policymakers than to study a hidden benefit of a global habit.

The researchers estimated that a country where people drank large amounts of tea would have about 3 percent less lead ingestion from the water supply than a (hypothetical) identical country that did not drink any tea.

“How wonderful,” said Henrietta Lovell, the founder of the Rare Tea Company. Ms. Lovell, who supplies teas to exclusive restaurants, pointed out that tea had been used in China for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. “The more I learn about tea, the more fabulous and fascinating it becomes,” Ms. Lovell said.

Dr. Francl believes that the new findings could eventually pave the way to a scalable method of making sure people aren’t ingesting heavy metals. “Given that clean water is such a global issue,” she said, “if there was a way to take this proof of concept and tweak it to produce potable water at the end, that would be pretty good.”

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Health

‘SuperAgers’ stay mentally sharp well past 80, as scientists reveal the reason

Published

33 minutes ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

‘SuperAgers’ stay mentally sharp well past 80, as scientists reveal the reason

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On the lookout

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A doctor says the second wave of flu season may be worse than previous years. (iStock)

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Stat of the week

More than 59% of women may have high blood pressure by 2050, according to a new report from the American Heart Association.

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This article was written by Fox News staff.

Health

Heart disease threat projected to climb sharply for key demographic

Published

13 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

Heart disease threat projected to climb sharply for key demographic

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

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.

NEARLY 90% OF AMERICANS AT RISK OF SILENT DISEASE — HERE’S WHAT TO KNOW

“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.

DOCTOR SHARES 3 SIMPLE CHANGES TO STAY HEALTHY AND INDEPENDENT AS YOU AGE

“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.

TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ

“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.”

Angelica Stabile is a lifestyle reporter for Fox News Digital.

Health

Vanessa Williams, 62, Opens up About Weight Loss and HRT After Menopause

Published

24 hours ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Vanessa Williams, 62, Opens up About Weight Loss and HRT After Menopause

Vanessa Williams Opens up About Weight Loss and HRT | Woman’s World

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