8 Surprising Health Benefits of Tea

Tea lovers live longer, healthier lives, research suggests

Kim Painter,

Updated October 10, 2025

AARP

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En español

Published October 18, 2022

/ Updated October 10, 2025

Your morning cup of tea can fortify your heart health. It may also lower your cancer risk. It can even help prevent obesity and strengthen your bones. Tea has been studied and shown to have overall health benefits for the body.

“It’s exciting because it’s a pleasurable, relatively easy activity to incorporate into your lifestyle,” says Dr. Victoria Maizes, executive director of the University of Arizona's Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine.

Although some of the research on specific benefits is inconclusive, “the bottom line is that tea is a healthful beverage,” says Jeffrey Blumberg, an active professor emeritus of nutrition at Tufts University.

After all, he and other experts say, tea is a plant food. Whether it’s black, green or oolong, all true teas come from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. (Herbal teas, which come from a variety of plants, may have different benefits.) People often conflate the two, according to Maizes, and while herbal tisanes have their own benefits, true teas like black, green, oolong and white tea can help the body with longevity.

True teas all contain compounds known as flavonoids that are antioxidants, meaning they can prevent or delay some kinds of cell damage. Some flavonoids in teas, called catechins, appear to fight inflammation, protect blood vessels and have other potentially healthful effects.

While catechins are higher in green teas than in the black teas favored in the United States, it’s not clear whether that makes a health difference, Blumberg says. For one thing, he says, blood tests have found similar flavonoid levels in people who drink green or black tea.

Other substances in teas, including caffeine and an amino acid called L-theanine, might also contribute to health benefits, researchers say.

Different teas might have some different effects, “but that’s the kind of detail we really haven’t hashed out quite yet,” says Marilyn Cornelis, an associate professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University. “We’re only really beginning to understand more about tea and its health benefits.”

That said, research done so far does suggest that tea might help you:

1. Live longer

U.S. adults who drank three to five cups of tea per day had a two-year higher life expectancy than those who didn’t drink tea, a Nutrition Journal study published last year found.

Pulling data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the researchers found that the tea drinkers at age 50 were expected to live 33 years longer, while those who didn’t drink tea were expected to live 31 years longer.

The data also suggests unsweetened tea was more beneficial than sweetened. People in the United Kingdom who drank two or more cups of tea daily had a reduced risk of death over more than a decade of follow-up, according to a study published in 2022 in Annals of Internal Medicine. The study, led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute, was notable because it was big, involving half a million people, and because it included mostly black tea drinkers. Previous studies showing that tea drinkers live longer had mostly focused on green tea drinkers in Asia.

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A caveat: While these studies show tea drinkers live longer, they don’t prove tea is the reason. Tea drinkers could have other characteristics or habits, unaccounted for by researchers, that matter. Cornelis, who was a coauthor of the recent study, also notes that British tea drinkers might differ in some ways from tea drinkers in the United States, though both favor black teas.

One difference, Blumberg says, is that the Brits tend to drink their tea stronger. The study didn’t look at tea strength, though.

2. Lower your risk of heart disease

If tea helps people live longer, a big reason might be that it protects heart health.

A 2024 study in Health Science Reports says that the flavonoids can reduce stress and inflammation. High tea intake was linked to a 50 percent decrease in heart disease risk and a 28 percent lower risk of heart failure.

Other studies have suggested tea might help lower blood pressure and improve cholesterol profiles. Inflammation plays a big role in heart disease, so it makes sense that the anti-inflammatory flavonoids in tea could help, Blumberg says. But excessive tea and caffeine consumption (more than 300 milligrams, or roughly six cups) can lead to arrhythmias and elevated blood pressure, so switch to decaf if caffeine affects your heart rate or blood pressure.

3. Lower your risk of diabetes

Studies on whether tea is linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes have produced uneven results. A 2025 study in the Journal of Diabetes looked at around 16,000 Chinese adults with type 2 diabetes and found drinking tea more than three times a week may help lower blood glucose, improve insulin resistance and reduce inflammation.

Those who had developed a consistent tea-drinking habit (more than 30 years) seemed to be even more protected. Regular consumption was linked to a reduction in heart disease complications associated with type 2 diabetes.

4. Manage your weight

Tea, like coffee, has an obvious appeal for people trying to avoid extra pounds: It’s essentially calorie-free, at least if you don’t add milk or sugar, says Katherine Zeratsky, a registered dietitian at the Mayo Clinic. It can be a tasty, hydrating, hunger-curbing alternative to sugary sodas and other caloric drinks, she says.

Some studies suggest the pairing of caffeine and catechins in tea might help people burn more calories and fat. But the jury is out on any real-world effects on weight.

Supplements containing green tea extracts “haven’t been shown to produce a meaningful weight loss in adults who are overweight or obese,” according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Some weight loss products containing green tea have been associated with rare cases of liver damage, the center says.

5. Stay sharp and alert

Caffeine, of course, helps many people perk up. Studies show it can boost alertness, attention, reaction times and physical performance. But the amount of caffeine needed to maximize benefits without getting unwanted side effects, such as jitters and poor sleep, differs from person to person, Cornelis says.

That’s one reason tea might hit the spot for some people: It has less caffeine than coffee. In one small study, people who sipped caffeinated drinks all day got a similar boost in alertness whether the drink was coffee or tea — but they slept better after a tea-drinking day.

An open question, Cornelis says, is whether caffeinated drinks can boost longer-term cognitive functioning and reduce dementia risks.

6. Feel less stressed

Just the act of brewing a cup of tea can provide a “calming moment,” Blumberg says. “It’s really very mindful to put a kettle on the stove to brew a cup and wait a minute while it steeps in your cup.”

Taking another few minutes to just sit with a warm beverage is relaxing too, Zeratsky says.

But some substances in tea, including the amino acid L-theanine, also may aid relaxation, Cornelis says. Some research supports the idea that tea drinking helps people recover from stress more quickly.

7. Keep your bones strong

In some studies, drinking tea is associated with greater bone density in older adults. One study that involved about 1,000 men and women found the highest bone density in those who had been habitual tea drinkers for at least 10 years.

8. Prevent cancer … maybe

Studies on whether tea drinkers get any protection from cancer have produced inconsistent results. Some studies suggest a benefit might exist for certain cancers: The Nutrition Journal study that looked at the relationship between tea and longevity found that drinking three to five cups of tea per day was linked to a 25 percent decrease in cancer mortality. But some studies found a possible link between drinking very hot tea and an increased risk of certain esophageal cancers.

Discover your tool kit for bouncing back more quickly from illness and injury with Heal Faster: Unlock Your Body’s Rapid Recovery Reflex, by Dr. Victoria Maizes (Simon & Schuster with AARP Books, January 13). Available to order now. Learn more at aarp.org/healfaster.

Does It Matter How You Take Your Tea?

What’s in your cup (or glass or bottle) of tea? The answers can vary widely. While some differences might not matter, others probably do, experts say.

Among true teas, from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant, these are most popular:

Green tea: This is the favored tea in Asia and is less processed than other varieties, leaving more of certain plant compounds in the finished product. A typical cup has 28 milligrams of caffeine.
Black tea: This is the most popular tea in the United States. It is processed in a way that leads to fermentation and changes in color and taste. A typical cup has about 50 milligrams of caffeine, roughly half of what’s in a cup of coffee.
Oolong Tea: This tea is processed in a way to create a flavor and caffeine profile about midway between green and black teas.

Current research provides no strong reason to pick one tea over another, says nutrition researcher Jeffrey Blumberg of Tufts University. You might take your lead, he says, from aficionados who “pair tea with food the same way that some people pair wine with certain foods.”

Other factors to consider:

Decaffeination: Tea, like coffee, can be decaffeinated. The process reduces antioxidant levels but only by 10 to 15 percent, Blumberg says.
Milk: Some studies suggest that proteins in milk bind to flavonoids in tea and make them less available in the body, Blumberg says. But other studies find no such effect. A recent large study showing a longevity advantage for tea drinkers found no differences among those who took milk in their tea. Blumberg says a splash of milk in a big mug of tea may have a very different effect than a drink that’s half milk and half tea.
Sugar: Loading up your tea with sugar, which has many negative health effects, could easily cancel out any benefits, says researcher Marilyn Cornelis of Northwestern University.
Icing it: A recent tea industry report said that 75 percent of tea consumed in the United States is iced. Much of that tea may lack the benefits of hot tea, Blumberg says. For one thing, he says, it tends to be diluted by the ice and is often loaded with sugar. Also, much of it is bottled and, partly because of long shelf times, lacking in helpful plant compounds, he says. The fix for iced tea lovers, he says, is to make your own strong brew, with two tea bags per cup, then add ice and drink immediately. Even leaving tea in the fridge, he says, can lower its potency. Also good to know: The recent longevity study found no differences among people who drank their tea at varying temperatures.

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Kim Painter is a contributing writer who specializes in health and psychology. She frequently writes for AARP's Staying Sharp and previously worked as a health reporter and columnist at USA Today.

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