Should you, shouldn’t you: How many cups of tea a day is too much?

A favourite concern for tea enthusiasts is wondering where they should draw the line; how many cups a day is acceptable — both socially and chemically. While there is no concrete answer to this question, there have been numerous studies that peg the sweet spot between 4-6 cups.

A lot of it depends on your body’s tolerance for certain chemicals found in tea and the amount of flourides and caffeine your body allows.

If you have a low tolerance for flourides, you’ll be fine as long as you are consuming loose leaf teas and not instant mixes or teabags.

A 2013 review of several studies found green tea helped prevent a range of heart-related issues, from high blood pressure to congestive heart failure. It has also been proved to help block the formation of plaques linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

A study published by the Harvard Medical School found that tea, especially green tea, does have several substances that lower the risk for heart disease, cancer, and other related health problems.

One study found that even up to 3 cups of tea a day led to a 4.6% decrease in the chances of developing a heart disease. Dr Zuo Feng Zhang, a cancer epidemiology researcher at UCLA, and the University of Maryland Medical Centre, recommends two to three teacups a day, according to a report in POPSUGAR.

According to WedMD, these are the benefits of drinking green tea:

1. Less weight and fat gain: Among mice with an obesity gene, those that ate chow laced with green tea extract gained less weight and less fat.

2. Less fat in the liver: There was less sign of “fatty liver” disease in the mice with the obesity gene that ate chow laced with green tea extract.

3. Lower cholesterol: Cholesterol and triglyceride levels in obese mice that ate the chow laced with green tea extract were considerably lower compared to other mice with the same obesity gene.

Many researchers however draw the upper limit at 10 cups a day. So now you know where to draw the limit.

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