Including tea in your cocktails is a great idea—the flavors and complexity of tea work incredibly well with spirits, as my last few posts attest.
But here’s another thought:
The potential health benefits contained within tea leaves are well known. So what happens when alcohol is infused with tea? The chemical constituents of the tea, including its caffeine and plentiful antioxidants, transfer into the alcohol—but do they retain their efficacy and impact us in any meaningful way?
In other words, can tea mitigate in any way the harmful effects of alcohol?
It turns out that people are working on this question, including a 2016 groundbreaking study that evaluated how mice responded to tea-fortified alcoholic beverages (Ochanda et al.).
When alcohol is metabolized in the human—or rodent—body (mostly in the liver), acetaldehyde and free radicals form, driving down antioxidant levels. When there aren’t enough antioxidants to take care of the free radicals, you end up with oxidative stress. Needless to say, this entire process is detrimental to our bodies.
We know that tea leaves are filled with antioxidants, and we also know that tea leaves can remove heavy metals by adsorption (see Used Tea Leaves and Tea Waste: Repurposed). The question is, then, does tea offset or prevent alcohol-induced damage?
In their experiment, Ochanda’s team (2016) included both oxidized (black) and unoxidized (green, purple) tea leaves in varying concentrations; the black and green teas were produced from the same clonal plant whereas the purple tea was a different clonal variety. Hence, the study examined teas that had different polyphenols, in varying concentrations. Alcohol content was held constant (12% v/v).
The results?
The researchers found that:
- Alcoholic beverage fortification helps reduce the harmful health effects associated with alcohol consumption such as depletion of antioxidants in blood, increase in body weight and liver cirrhosis.
- Blood and liver antioxidant biomarkers showed that antioxidants are boosted; hence, there is less damage to body tissue. . . .
- Tea fortification of alcoholic beverages increases antioxidant biomarkers in the blood, when compared with alcoholic beverages without tea.
Tea, with its plentiful antioxidants, did appear to help protect the liver. At least in mice, under a controlled laboratory study.
In a follow-up study, Ochanda and colleagues (2017) unequivocally state that tea’s “health benefits can be transferred to products in which tea has been incorporated.” In this work, they used alcohol at 6% v/v, with the same tea types as previously. Their findings enforce the understanding that oxidative stress is a significant factor in the harmful effects of alcohol—and again suggest that tea-fortified alcohol protects the liver against alcohol-induced damage.
Their conclusion:
With validation from higher mammals, tea (Camellia sinensis) may be used as an agent for protection against alcohol toxicity and oxidative stress. (Ochanda et al. 2017)
Note that they qualify this with the extremely reasonable point that further research is necessary. Yet, the results here are promising.
Other studies have delved into tea’s effect on alcohol-caused fatty liver disease (AFLD). Because oxidative stress and inflammation in the liver, along with an imbalance in the gut’s microbes, factor into this disease, it seems reasonable that tea—with its anti-inflammatory property and its ability to decrease oxidative stress—might mitigate damage. Although tea wasn’t consumed with the alcohol, outcomes were favorable.
A recent study concluded that tea extracts not only prevented liver inflammation and lowered oxidative stress levels in mice, but:
oolong tea and dark tea could prevent chronic alcohol exposure-induced AFLD by modulating gut microbiota (Bangyan et al. 2021)
Another investigation indicated that when mice drank green tea after they were given ethanol, the tea:
markedly reduced liver damage, hepatic oxidative stress, hepatic lipid accumulation and inflammatory response. (Dongxu et al. 2017)
A small clinical trial in 2021 (Li et al.) demonstrated that green tea tablets and other plant-based foods were beneficial to liver function (in humans!).
Although preliminary findings are encouraging—and are likely to promote further investigation—they aren’t directly applicable to us quite yet. Results in mice are not the same as those in the human body, and many studies use far-more-controllable tea concentrates. No one is saying that drinking a cup of tea is going to prevent liver damage if you overindulge.
Therefore, at this time, we must view tea as an ingredient that brings depth, flavor, and complexity to a cocktail—not as a preventative or mitigating factor against alcohol. If you enjoy an occasional cocktail, try using tea-infused spirits and enjoy the results as you would any cocktail.
Meanwhile, keep an eye out for future studies that explore the seemingly endless beneficial potential of tea leaves.
(Please keep in mind that cocktails, with or without tea, should be enjoyed in moderation and in accordance with your doctor.)
Sources:
–Bangyan, L., et al., “Effects of tea against alcoholic fatty liver disease by modulating gut microbiota in chronic alcohol-exposed mice,” Foods 10(6):1232. May 28, 2021.
–Dongxu, W., et al., “Green tea infusion protects against alcoholic liver injury by attenuating inflammation and regulating the PI3K/Akt/eNOS pathway in C57BL/6 mice,” Food & Function 9. 2017.
–Li, H-Y., et al., “Plant-based foods and their bioactive compounds on fatty liver disease,” Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity. 2021.
–Ochanda, S. O., et al., “Fortification of alcoholic beverages (12% v/v) with tea (Camellia sinensis) reduces harmful effects of alcohol ingestion and metabolism in mouse model,” BMJ 3(1). 2016.
–Ochanda, S. O., et al., “Investigations of antioxidant and hepatomodulatory potentials of tea (Camellia sinensis) in black, green and purple tea fortified alcoholic beverages (6% v/v) using a mouse model,” Austin Journal of Gastroenterology 4(4). 2017.
It's More Than Tea 