Antioxydants

Question I would like to eventually answer: What does it matter, the amount of antioxydants in tea?

(Bolding below is from me.)

Antioxydant Definition

Antioxidants are man-made or natural substances that may prevent or delay some types of cell damage. Antioxidants are found in many foods, including fruits and vegetables. They are also available as dietary supplements.

Some examples of antioxydants are Beta-carotene, Lutein, Lycopene, Selenium, Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Vitamin E.

Tea has a lot of antioxydants

Tea is an important source of flavonoids in the diet and the flavonoids found in tea are known to be strong antioxidants. […] The traditional tea (Camellia sinensis) infusion is characterized by a high content of flavonoids. Flavonoids are a large group of phenolic products of plant metabolism with a variety of phenolic structures that have unique biological properties and may be responsible for many of the health benefits attributed to tea. […] One hypothesis explaining such effects is that the high levels of flavonoids in tea can protect cells and tissues from oxidative damage by scavenging oxygen-free radicals. Chemically, the flavonoids found in green and black tea are very effective radical scavengers. The tea flavonoids may therefore be active as antioxidants in the digestive tract or in other tissues after uptake. (Source: Antioxidant effects of tea: evidence from human clinical trials

Some preliminary research on tea-drinking benefits

Some research suggests that drinking tea may help:

  • Lower cholesterol when you eat a heart-healthy diet
  • Improve blood vessel and heart health
  • Reduce damage to DNA caused by smoking
  • Reduce the risk of some cancers

Measuring antioxydants

The unit for measuring antioxydants that I see most often is 𝜇mol (the micromole).

What is a micromole?
From Wikipédia: The quantity amount of substance is a measure of how many elementary entities of a given substance are in an object or sample. The mole is defined as containing exactly 6.02214076×1023 elementary entities.

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