by WTN Staff

A study published in the January 2010 issue of the journal Nutrition Research suggests that adding milk to black tea may reduce the effectiveness of the tea's antioxidants.

Researchers in the U.K.'s School of Life Sciences at Oxford Brookes University led the study. They based their work on previous studies indicated that the polyphenols in black tea have the potential to improve human health in a variety of ways. Because the British frequently consume black tea with milk, the researchers wondered whether the addition of milk lowered the capacity of the black tea's polyphenols.

To begin answering this question, they analyzed the tea itself (before being consumed by a living organism). They took five different brands of black tea that were each "a significant source of antioxidants," according to an abstract of the study. To each tea, varying volumes of whole, semi-skimmed and skimmed milk. The researchers then measured the antioxidant capacity of the tea-milk mixtures.

In every brand of tea tested, the addition of milk decreased its total antioxidant capacity. However, the addition of skimmed milk lowered the antioxidant capacity of the tea remarkably more than the addition of semi-skimmed or whole milk.

"We conclude," the tea wrote, "that black tea is a valuable source of antioxidants and that the effect of milk on the total antioxidant capacity may be related to the fat content of the milk."

A related studyon the binding interactions between green tea flavonoids and milk proteins was carried out in the Department of Food Technology at the Bayramic Vocational College in Canakkale, Turkey.