Abertay Tea for Cardiovascular Health During Menopause

The regular consumption of seaweed, as observed in Japan, is associated to a reduced cardiovascular risk and prolonged life expectancy. Interventional studies have shown that brown seaweed consumption can reduce blood pressure, improve glycaemic control and lipoprotein profiles, although this varies with population, dose, duration and the type of seaweed. Brown seaweed appears the most promising to improve cardiovascular risk, due to the presence of specific antioxidants (polyphenols called phlorotannins), pigments (fucoxanthin) and fibre (alginate, fucoidan).

Women see their cardiovascular risk greatly increased when they reach menopause, and seaweed consumption may provide benefits for this population. In the UK, 98% of UK residents drink tea daily (Source UKTIA), with English breakfast tea being the most popular. Providing a tea enriched with beneficial compounds has the potential to improve cardiovascular health in a wide range of the population, including postmenopausal women. Abertay university (Dundee, UK) has recently developed an English Breakfast tea enriched with fermented seaweed, which was found to taste like English breakfast tea. We hypothesise that the consumption of 3 cups a day of the Abertay-developed Tea (AberTea) for 8 weeks, with each tea bag containing 1g of fermented seaweed, will improve vascular function and cardiovascular risk factors in postmenopausal women.