Black Tea Reduces Cortisol, Spearmint Tea Lowers Androgens

check it out:

"Find yourself turning to a cup of tea in troubled times? According to researchers at University College London, people who drink tea are better able to recover from stress.In a study published in the October 2006 issue of Psychopharmacology, researchers found that men who drank black tea four times daily over a six-week period had lower levels of a stress hormone called cortisol in their blood compared to men given a placebo tea.The study participants were 75 male tea drinkers, who were put in stressful situations while researchers monitored their levels of cortisol, blood pressure and heart rate and asked them to describe their stress levels.

Less than an hour after the task, cortisol levels fell an average of 47 per cent in tea drinkers, compared to a 27 per cent drop in the placebo group.Researchers said they were unable to pinpoint which ingredients in tea aid in regulating cortisol levels."

"Waxing, plucking and shaving are some of the ways many women get rid of unwanted hair on their faces, breasts, and stomachs, but new research suggests two cups of spearmint tea might be a good natural alternative.A Turkish study published in the February 2007 issue of Phytotherapy Research shows that drinking two cups of spearmint tea a day for five days can help bring down levels of “masculinising” androgen hormones in women.

Lead researcher Mehmet Numan Tamer studied 21 women with excessive hair growth. Participants were given herbal tea made with one cup of boiling water and one teaspoon of dried leaves, steeped for five to 10 minutes. Blood tests later indicated androgen levels had dropped.This study builds on other research that suggests spearmint extracts lower libido in men and androgen levels in rats."

yes lowering androgens in women is a great idea

side effects: no sex drive, no muscle mass, no energy to do anything

If they have enough androgen in their system to grow a beard A - who cares how high their sex drive is and B - the tea isn’t gonna drop it enough to mess them up!

Weird, I remember that high dose caffeine causes slight increases in cortisol; dose low dose caffeine seem to do an opposite hormetic effect (as it is high in black tea), or is this correlated with another compound (EGCG)?

(Link before called on it: Action of the methylxanthines on the pituitary and pituitary-dependent hormones - PubMed)

Any input?