Teas to drink for eye health

What you put into your body is vitally important to how healthy you are. Good diet can reduce the risk of heart attack, diabetes and cancer. The benefits of nutritious foods and beverages spread across every part of your body. You can help fight specific health problems by changing your diet. You can also try to eat and drink things to benefit a specific part of your body.

Eye health is important. What you eat and drink determines whether or not your eyes are getting the right nutrients to be healthy and strong. Drinking tea can give you antioxidants and nutrients. Some people drink tea because they love the taste. Others drink tea specifically because it’s good for them.

Here are some teas to drink that will benefit your eye health.

Green tea

Green tea is rich in antioxidants. These benefit your eyes as well as your overall health. The antioxidants in green tea are called catechins. These include vitamin C, vitamin E, lutein and zeaxanthin. They protect the eyes from glaucoma and other diseases. The catechins reach eye tissue and can have benefits there. The retinas absorb the most catechins. Japanese researchers found that rats exposed to green tea had healthier eyes.

Drinking green tea can reduce the effects of oxidative stress. The entire body including the eyes can experience the effects of oxidative stress. It happens when there is an imbalance between free radicals and other chemicals and the body’s ability to neutralize them with antioxidants. Damage can occur because of this imbalance. Oxidative stress is linked to cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, heart failure, autism and chronic fatigue syndrome.

It can also cause damage to the eyes. The retina is a highly metabolically active. It consumes oxygen a lot of oxygen compared to other parts of the body. Oxidative stress can cause diseases like macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma. These can result in blindness. Drinking teas rich in antioxidants can help combat this problem.

White tea

White tea is also rich in antioxidants that can benefit the eyes. It is made from the same plant as green tea but is picked earlier and processed differently. White tea is not fermented at all allowing it to keep all those rich antioxidants. Green tea is partially fermented and black tea is fully fermented. White teas are light in colour as the name suggests.

White teas usually have more antioxidants than green teas, as much as three times as many. Like green tea white tea can fight glaucoma and other eye diseases.

Oolong tea

There are many varieties of oolong tea. It is made from the same plant as green and white tea. Oolong tea is partially fermented. The varieties range in how fermented they are. Oolong tea contains antioxidants including catechins, thearubigin and theaflavin. These antioxidants help fight the harmful effects of free radicals.

Remember not to over do it with tea consumption. All things are good in moderation. If you consume too much of anything it can go from being beneficial to harmful.