Taiwan Buddhist group sends low-fluorine tea to Tibet - Summary
November 22, 2007
Posted : Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:22:02 GMT
Author : DPA
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Taipei - A Taiwan Buddhist group, believing the high- fluorine butter
tea which Tibetans have been drinking for centuries is bad for their
health, is sending low-fluorine tea to Tibet, the group said Tuesday.
The Buddhist Tzuchi Foundation joined Chinese researchers in studying
the tea-drinking habits of Tibetans in 2000 and since 2004, has
distributed 144 tons of low-fluorine tea to Tibet, the group's deputy
leader Wang Tuan-cheng said.
For thousands of years, Tibetans have been drinking butter tea to
help them digest meat and stay warm in the harsh climate. Tibetan
soil has a high fluorine content, which is absorbed by the tea bushes.
Chinese scholars noticed the high levels of fluorine in Tibetan
butter tea in 1983 and launched a field study in 1994.
Tzuchi listed fluorine poisoning by tea as one of its overseas relief
projects in 2000.
In 2004, Tzuchi and Chinese scholars launched a joint research
project which discovered fluorine poisoning from butter tea among
minority ethnic groups in Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Sichuan, Qinghai,
Gansu and Xinjiang.
According to Tzuchi's study, Tibetans drink large amounts of butter
tea, sometimes up to 40-50 cups a day.
"They drink it like water, so it causes many health problems, like
dental or skeletal fluorosis, yellow teeth, teeth decay and the
stooping of the back," Tzuchi's Wang said.
A separate study by Chinese doctors showed that 53.5 per cent of
students in Naqu, northern Tibet, suffer from dental fluorosis due to
drinking butter tea from an early age.
According to the World Health Organization, a safe fluorine intake is
2 milligrammes for a child and 4mg for an adult, but the fluorine in
a kettle of butter tea (2,600 cubic centimetres from 100 grams of
tea) made from the traditional Tibetan brick-tea is 6-10 mg.
The fluorine content in the low-fluorine tea brick is less than 4mg.
Professor Cao Xing from China's Central South University, who headed
the research, has obtained the patent for the low-fluorine tea brick
and wants to share it with Tzuchi.
But Tzuchi hopes Cao can pass the patent to China's health
authorities so that they can mass produce low-fluorine tea bricks for
Tibetans and other Chinese ethnic minorities.