6 Gut Health Benefits of Eating Tea Leaves

6 Gut Health Benefits of Eating Tea Leaves

WRITTEN BY OUR OFFICIAL SCIENCE STEEPER: ALLISON TANNIS, MSC RHN.

Can Tea Improve Gut Health?

Yes! A large body of evidence shows drinking or eating green tea daily enhances the health of your gut microbiome, ultimately improving your gut health… and more!


6 Gut Health Benefits of Eating Tea Leaves

  • Helps Good Microbes 
  • Deters Bad Microbes 
  • Keeps the Balance 
  • Lowers Inflammation
  • Helps You Poop
  • Reduces Risk of Colon Cancer


How Much Green Tea Should You Drink for Gut Health?

Drinking up to 4-5 cups of green tea a day improved gut health in human trials. How did it improve gut health? Green tea increases the number of good microbes and reduces the number of harmful microbes in the gut. The impact of gut health is incredible – and it can even impact other areas of your wellness.


Does Green Tea Help You Poop?

Making green tea a part of your day may keep your colon happy as it’s more likely to host good microbes, such as Bifidobacterium. This family of helpful microbes are the ultimate party guests you want in your colon – they can aid digestion and reduce constipation. Yes, you want more of these microbes because they can help you poop. 

How Do Green Tea Leaves Help Your Gut Bacteria?

Green tea leaves act as prebiotics. Prebiotics are needed by the good microbes in your gut to flourish. The bad microbes (pathogenic bacteria) are deterred from guts that contain tea catechins, such as EGCG, shows research. This balance of greater numbers of good microbes than bad is vital to gut health – the opposite is a condition called dysbiosis, linked with many illnesses. In fact, researchers have found green tea’s helpful polyphenols, such as EGCG, shift gut bacteria in a way that increases anti-cancer activity in the colon. 


Does Green Tea Help Leaky Gut?

Most famous for its high antioxidant content and anti-inflammatory talents, green tea may help with leaky gut. According to a 2022 research study, green tea helps lower permeability in the gut.


Is Green Tea Good for Gut Inflammation?

Yes, the researchers also found green tea’s ability to help lower inflammation in the gut  impressive. That’s great news as inflammation in the gut is a messy situation: the usually very particular gut lining becomes inflamed and more permeable, allowing more to pass through the gut wall than desired. The result can be a cascade of troubling inflammation and discomfort. The benefit of lower inflammation in the gut from consuming green tea lowers the risk of many diseases.


5 Ways Green Tea’s Gut Health Benefits May Prevent Disease 

  • Lowers Inflammation
  • Lowers Blood Sugar
  • Improves Fasting Insulin
  • Reduces Leaky Gut
  • Reduces Risk Factors of Metabolic Syndrome & Obesity


Green Tea for Gut Health & More

Your pursuit of a happier, healthier gut may be helped by green tea leaves. Researchers are incredibly excited about the impact the gut has on overall health. Human trials have found green tea’s prebiotic abilities enhance the health of the gut microbiome. Plus, the antioxidant abilities of green tea in the gut are linked to lower blood sugar and improved insulin levels. 


The Best Tea for Gut Health

The most potent source of gut-supporting prebiotics and antioxidants found in green tea are available in the whole leaf. Yet, for most of us, tea plants don’t grow in our part of the world. Get the whole leaf in your freezer. Breakthrough advancements in how tea leaves are harvested and frozen mean you can get the maximum gut health-promoting benefits of the tea leaves in your freezer – come meet the Millennia Tea Superfood Tea Cube.

References:

Tea compounds and the gut microbiome: findings from trials and mechanistic studies. Nutrients 2019 Oct; 11(10):2364.

Effects of green tea consumption on human fecal microbiota with special reference to Bifidobacterium species. Microbiol. Immunol. 2012;56:729–739.

Catechin-rich green tea extract reduced intestinal inflammation and fasting glucose in metabolic syndrome and healthy adults: a randomized controlled crossover trial. Curr Dev Nutrition 2022 June; 6(1): 981.

Green tea and its relation to human gut microbiome. Molecules 2021 June; 26(13): 3907.

Green tea liquid consumption alters the human intestinal and oral microbiome. Mol Nutr Food Res 2018 Jun; 62(12): 1800178.