Tea and Sports

Well, you've asked a lot of questions here, so I'll answer those that I can.

Tea as a dietary enhancement? Probably not, since the majority of the chemicals which are supposed to be beneficial are released only by steeping the tea in very hot water. I doubt that stomach acid or anything else in the digestive system would work quite as well, so someone taking tea leaves probably wouldn't get much effect, if any. If you drink tea, I don't think it qualifies as a dietary suppliment, since it doesn't really contain that much solid matter anyway. I think the primary effectiveness of tea as a health suppliment would come from a placebo effect, rather than anything actually in the leaves themselves.

I wouldn't associate tea with sport, simply because hot tea doesn't sound very nice if you're hot and dripping sweat from running around for a while. Maybe iced tea would be drunk by an athlete, but more likely for the effects of the sugar and caffiene. And as you mentioned, tea is a diuretic as well, so that might discourage athletes in some sports from drinking it. Personally I don't see why caffiene would be banned by an anti-doping agency, since it would take a lot of caffiene to cause any major effect, and than it would lead to a major crash, causing worse performance later.

Is the use of caffiene ethical? I think that caffiene has such minor effects, and wouldn't help an athlete much other than being a placebo, so it comes with the same ethical questions that could be considered if an athlete used a good luck charm, or had religious beliefs which concerned thier athletic performance.

Personally I just drink tea because I like the taste, and find it to be a very pleasant drink. I have actually drank it before participating in sports or work myself, but usually to keep me awake, and generally not in the hotest parts of the day. I can't say I've ever noticed any physical benefits, only extra stimulation of my nervous system.

Thanks for a thoughtful response.

Just to clear one thing up, I was referring to brewed tea (hot or cold). I agree that consuming tea leaves "straight" would likely not have much effect other than possibly placebo.

There are a couple of areas where I do think tea could have a positive effect on athletic performance. First, as a stimulant used just prior to a game/competition I think that tea could act as a pick up for players. I heard that in the NFL after ephedrine was banned a lot of people started drinking yerba mate and matcha right before game time. Also, caffeine has been shown to increase performance in endurance athletes by mobilizing fat stores, which are then used in energy production. Caffeine has been shown to reduce glycogen consumption in muscle in experimental tests. I personally know that many world class runners in Kenya drink a large amount of rich black tea. I guess the argument could be made that it's caffeine that's the real performance enhancer and not tea. However, there are other stimulants found in tea, namely Theophylline, which may have other positive effects.

Caffeine is banned under the category of stimulants along with a whole list of other seemingly non performance enhancing substances. I agree that it shouldn't be there. But alcohol and cannaboid are also on the banned list, and I think these two substances should be taken off before caffeine is.

Although not tea, I think Rooibos could provide positive benefits when consumed after a workout. It's high in electrolytes and has a general relaxing effect.

Robert Hanson