Rooibos tea - A survey of scientific studies
Most studies seem to agree on the fact that the low tannin levels of rooibos and its lack of caffeine make it a healthy alternative to common sorts of black or green tea. Hence, it can be safely claimed that rooibos is indeed suitable as a less aggressive alternative to Camellia sinensis, and can be safely drunk by children and elderly people. Also, the outstanding nutrition and mineral levels of the beverage can be considered a fact. Apart from this, the health improving effects of rooibos as claimed by traditional medicine are widely disputed.While some scholars deny that rooibos has any positive effect at all, when applied for instance against stomach trouble, skin rashes ore other diseases supposedly to be related with deficit symptoms of the body, the general consensus seems to be that rooibos is indeed a healthy beverage, which nevertheless should not be overestimated. In order to underline this point, the South African research centre Promec challenges the common perception of rooibos as an indigenous plant mostly used for medical reason by reminding of the fact that although sometimes applied for medical purposes, rooibos was for the Khoisan first and foremost an herbal beverage, and not a medicine. Furthermore the study implies that although rooibos is less aggressive then common tea, upon those grounds it can not be considered a medical plant, a perspective many scholars seem to share.
Nevertheless, although still not that much accounted for in the public opinion, the antioxidant qualities of rooibos tea are nowadays at the real focal point of the scientific research conducted on the subject. The South African Rooibos Council, as a major institution researching on rooibos, quotes a recent study during the course of which rats, depending for ten weeks on rooibos as their only source of liquid, experienced a 5:1 elevation of the proportion of oxidised to reduced glutathione.
Glutathione is considered the major antioxidant in the human body. Binding free radicals it has been already proven to antagonize the progress of several types of cancer, heart diseases and other age related medical issues. The Promec institution specifies that, as a major cause of cancer is damage of the genetic material, the rising level of glutathione associated with rooibos tea could indeed prevent the namely genetic damages from happening.
However, studies by A. Von Gadowa, E. Joubertb, and C. F. Hansmannb show that antioxidant qualities are not limited to rooibos tea. Another South African type of tea, honeybush tea, has proven just as effective. And also common black and green teas seem to raise the antioxidants level in living organisms, which might counteract cancer.
As all studies conducted so far have been animal experiments, none of the findings are final. Clinical trials, the first of which has been started in 2007 in Cape Town, will have to prove the effectivity of rooibos´ antioxidant qualities within the human body.