The ancient physician Hippocrates said it best: “All disease begins in the gut.”
But there are so many elements affecting gut health that it can be overwhelming.
In this article, we focus on the benefits of using tea for gut health.
Read on for more information about how tea helps improve gut health, among other solutions.
How Does Tea Improve Gut Health?
Second only to water, tea is the world’s most popular drink. Many teas have health benefits that include better sleep, better digestion, and inflammation relief.
Research has shown that certain teas — or more accurately, certain compounds found in tea — can help restore a healthy gut biome. This in turn improves digestion and can even clear up chronic health conditions.
Polyphenols, the antioxidant compounds found in tea plants, are the main gut-friendly ingredients.
Polyphenols are important food for healthy gut bacteria. By contrast, “bad” gut bacteria loves to feed on sugar. Feeding the good bacteria and starving the bad bacteria will help restore a healthy gut microbiome.
Bacteria digest polyphenols, resulting in the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). SCFAs help regulate metabolism and inflammation. A shortage of SCFAs has been linked to disease.
As the gut microbiome improves, people often experience fewer digestive symptoms and better overall health.
Teas that Improve Gut Health
Teas can be broken down into several types.
The first are teas made with Camellia sinensis, which is used to make black, green, oolong, and white tea. Its uniqueness is in the drying and processing steps, which affect not only the taste but also its types of polyphenols. It’s known for being antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal. As an antioxidant, it has a number of other helpful bioactivities.
The second type is herbal teas, which are made from various plants. These may entail roots, leaves, flowers, or the entire plant. Herbal teas are known for different benefits, including anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antimicrobial and other antioxidant properties.
Mushroom teas use mushroom powder to make tea, or the powder can be added to other types of tea. These are often used to strengthen the immune system, which has numerous benefits.
How Much Caffeine Is In Tea?
Green, black, white, and oolong tea contains some caffeine. Black tea contains 47mg of caffeine per 8 oz. serving. Green, white, and oolong tea is a bit lower, at 28mg of caffeine per 8 oz. serving.
Is caffeine good for the gut? Generally, yes; although overconsumption can have the opposite effect. If you are sensitive to caffeine, it may be better to start with one cup and gradually increase caffeine consumption in accordance with your bodily tolerance to it.
Herbal tea is generally caffeine-free, with a few exceptions, such as yerba mate, guarana, and citrus leaf teas. Mushroom tea contains no caffeine.
Here’s how specific teas can benefit your gut health and digestion:
Black Tea
Black tea is the world’s most consumed type of tea. It contains a strain of polyphenols not found in other teas. Theaflavins (TF) are antioxidant polyphenols formed during the condensation of flavan-3-ols in tea leaves during the drying of tea leaves.
Recently, researchers have found that drinking at least two cups of black tea every day lowers the risk of death from any cause by nearly 13% compared to those who don’t drink tea at all. A similar study found that three cups of black tea daily for 12 weeks increases healthy gut bacteria.
Black tea also has antimicrobial properties which destroy harmful substances in the gut and support a healthy gut bacteria balance.
Green Tea
Best known for its antioxidant properties, green tea is a powerful anti-inflammatory and has been linked to reduced chances of colon cancer.
Drinking two cups of green tea every day has been shown to dramatically increase the concentration of healthy gut bacteria. A small 2023 study found that consuming three cups of black tea daily increases the healthy gut bacteria involved in producing butyrate, a compound that improves gut health.
Boosting your green tea consumption to 4-5 cups a day can provide the gut with probiotics. These include beneficial gut bacteria and yeasts.
Matcha (Green) Tea
Matcha tea is a type of green tea made from tea leaves ground into a fine powder. In this case, the tea leaves are consumed rather than discarded. Thus, matcha tea has a greater nutrient and fiber density, which can improve gut health and support greater gut bacteria diversity.
Oolong Tea
Oolong tea, which is somewhat milder in taste than black tea, has similar gut health benefits as black tea. It may help lower cholesterol.
White Tea
White tea is also made from the same plant used to make black, green, and oolong tea; however, it has a milder in flavor. This tea is also anti-inflammatory and has antioxidant properties that reduce the concentration of amylase and lipase, which often cause digestive upset.
Now, let’s move on to herbal leaf and root teas.
Chamomile Tea
A popular tea made from dried chamomile flowers, chamomile tea relaxes the muscles of the entire digestive tract to relieve upset stomachs and excessive gas. It also lowers gastric acidity.
Cinnamon Tea
Cinnamon powder can be used to make a soothing, warming tea. This antioxidant-rich tea is often used to treat pain related to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Dandelion Tea
Dandelion tea can be made from the roots, leaves, or the entire plant. This tea has anti-inflammatory properties and has been shown to ease the symptoms of ulcers and gastric reflux.
Fennel Tea
Fennel seed tea, which contains fennel oil, is effective in soothing IBS and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Ginger Tea
A popular tea for digestive upset, ginger root tea helps increase the movement of food through the digestive system, reducing nausea, bloating, and gas.
Peppermint Tea
Peppermint leaf tea is also often used to treat digestive problems. It has a relaxing effect on the gastrointestinal tract. Drink peppermint tea in moderation to avoid acid reflux.
Turmeric Tea
Turmeric root tea contains curcumin, which has potent anti-inflammatory properties. It is often used to treat arthritis and various inflammatory disorders and has a soothing effect on the digestive tract.
Fermented Tea (Kombucha)
Kombucha is tea that is fermented after brewing. This probiotic-rich tea may help boost good gut bacteria and improve gut microbiome diversity.
Mushroom Teas
Chaga mushroom supports gut health as well as immune system health. It can also regulate blood sugar.
Lion’s Mane mushrooms promote the growth of beneficial gut bacteria.
Reishi mushroom tea contains beta-glucans that encourage the growth of healthy gut bacteria.
Mushroom teas can be made with dried mushroom powder. If you don’t love the taste of mushrooms, you can add a small amount to black or green tea, or to a more flavorful tea such as ginger or fennel tea.
Gut Health and Red Light Therapy
Red light therapy is another useful supplementary treatment for improving gut health. This natural treatment is completely noninvasive and has no side effects.
Red light therapy works by boosting cellular metabolism which has a powerful positive ripple effect on health, by improving circulation, and by significantly reducing inflammation.
If all disease begins in the gut, it makes sense to approach gut health from the outside by supporting a healthy gut microbiome, while also supporting the digestive tract itself on a cellular level.
Red light therapy does not ‘feed bacteria.’ It ‘feeds’ the cells in the digestive tract. When they function better, they are less vulnerable to the effects of inflammation and toxic overload.
A daily red light therapy treatment can be done at home using an LED light therapy device. Just 5-20 minutes a day will give your body the benefits of therapeutic red and infrared light.
RLT with The BIOMAX Series
The BIOMAX Series light therapy panels are the optimal solution for boosting gut health. They feature red diodes, near-infrared diodes, as well as trace amounts of blue light.
There are many different applications for red light therapy, ranging from weight loss to easing neuropathy pain, muscle recovery, anti-aging, and relief from chronic inflammatory skin conditions.
Check out the BIOMAX Series RLT panels or the Learning Center to discover more!