Tea therapy : To lose weight, don't add milk to your cuppa

The Right Brew

It's a known fact that tea contains antioxidants that help you lose weight, but a new research by an Indian scientists found that this fat-fighting ability is neutralised if milk is added to it. It has long been found out that tea contains high levels of antioxidants such as theaflavins and thearubigins which help reduce the amount of fat absorbed by the gut and can also cut cholestrol. Now researches at the Tea Research Association in Assam, India, found the compounds also help prevent obesity when given to rats that were on a high fat diet.

The benefits are cancelled out by proteins found in cows' milk, they said. "When tea us taken with milk, theaflavins abd thearubigins form complexes with the milk protein, which causes them to precipitate," Devajit Borthakur, a scientist at the Tea Research Association, said. "Therefore, it is always advised to take tea without milk," he said.

The scientists at the centre are now looking for ways of making the antioxidants less susceptible to being neytralised by milk.