Yerba Mate Benefits: A Health Guide to This South American Tea
Key takeaways:
Yerba Mate is a traditional tea that has been used in South America for centuries.
Like coffee and many other types of tea, it’s a stimulant that naturally contains caffeine.
Yerba mate has lots of vitamins and minerals, and research has shown that it can have plenty of positive health effects on your body.
Table of contents
Yerba mate (pronounced yer-bah ma-teh) is a South American tea made from the leaves of the tree Ilex paraguariensis. Native to South America, yerba mate was originally consumed by indigenous Guaraní communities. It’s now a common drink in many parts of South America. Thanks to its high amounts of vitamins and minerals, yerba mate has grown in popularity across the globe in recent years.
People have used yerba mate as a medicinal beverage for centuries. From heart, skin, and gut health to diabetes management, there are lots of claims about the health benefits of yerba mate. In recent years, modern research has confirmed many — but not all — of these health benefits. Let’s take a closer look.
Yerba mate nutritional content
Yerba mate is rich in many vitamins and minerals. It also contains lots of nutritionally important phytochemicals, which are the basis of many of the positive health effects that yerba mate has.
Here are some of the phytochemicals in yerba mate:
Polyphenols: Polyphenols are powerful antioxidants.
Xanthines: These often act as stimulants.
Flavonoids: These have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.
All of these compounds are bioactive, meaning that they have specific effects on your body.
Latin American cuisine: Quinoa is another popular product with deep roots in South America. Learn more about the health benefits of this “superfood.”
Green tea health benefits: If you’re a fan of tea, discover how drinking green tea can support your health in a range of ways.
How much caffeine is too much? From coffee and tea to energy drinks, lots of beverages contain caffeine. Learn how much caffeine is in coffee and other popular caffeinated drinks.
In addition to phytochemicals, yerba mate also contains lots of vitamins, like vitamin C, vitamin B1, and vitamin B2. Yerba mate is also rich in many minerals, including phosphorus, iron, and calcium.
What are the health benefits of yerba mate?
People have consumed yerba mate as both a medicinal and social beverage for centuries. Over the years, many claims have been made about what yerba mate can help with. There’s some promising research to back up some of these claims, though many of the studies were pretty small. Let’s take a look at eight of these claims and what the research shows.
1. It can lower your blood pressure
Research has shown that yerba mate can lower your blood pressure. In one study, people who drank yerba mate 3 times a day saw their blood pressures drop after just 8 weeks. Scientists believe this is because yerba mate causes your body’s natural levels of nitric oxide to increase. This makes your arteries relax, and your blood pressure goes down as a result.
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2. It can lower your cholesterol
Yerba mate has also been shown to help with your cholesterol. In one study, people with high cholesterol who drank 11 oz of yerba mate each day for 40 days had a 8.5% drop in their bad cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein or LDL) levels. People who were already taking cholesterol-lowering medications, like statins, saw an even bigger improvement. Their LDL levels dropped 13%. People also saw a 6% improvement in their good cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein or HDL) levels.
3. It helps with diabetes management
In one study, people with diabetes who drank 11 oz per day of yerba mate had lower fasting glucose levels. They also saw improvement in an important marker of diabetes called hemoglobin A1C levels. This means that the improvement to their diabetes wasn’t just temporary. Yerba mate actually helped improve their blood sugar levels for the long term.
4. It has anti-inflammatory properties
Yerba mate contains a lot of polyphenols. These are compounds that have many benefits, including reducing inflammation in your body. Because yerba mate has so many polyphenols, it makes sense that drinking yerba mate would help with inflammation.
Recently, research has backed up these anti-inflammatory benefits. People who drank yerba mate regularly were found to have lower levels of a wide range of inflammatory markers in their body.
5. It can help with weight loss
Some people turn to yerba mate as a natural appetite suppressant. There’s no quality evidence to suggest that natural appetite suppressants really work. But some research shows that yerba mate may also help with weight loss.
In one study, people with high BMI levels consumed oral supplements made from yerba mate for 12 weeks. Researchers found that these people had lower body fat than people who didn’t receive supplements. Scientists believe this is because yerba mate contains natural compounds that send signals to your body, telling it to produce less fat. In other words, rather than simply helping to burn fat, yerba mate might also make it so that your body makes less fat to begin with.
On top of all this, yerba mate is a stimulant, and stimulants generally increase the body’s metabolism as well.
6. It causes improved alertness and thinking
Yerba mate contains caffeine as well as other stimulants known as theobromine and theophylline. These natural chemicals can make you feel more alert and awake. They also can help with focus.
Some people say that yerba mate gives all the mental stimulant benefits of coffee, but it doesn’t have a lot of the associated heart effects like jitteriness and palpitations.
7. It may be good for your skin
Because yerba mate contains many vitamins and anti-inflammatory phytochemicals, lots of people believe that it can be used to improve your skin. For this reason, some modern beauty products contain yerba mate extract.
It makes sense that products with vitamins and anti-inflammatory properties could be good for your skin. But there hasn’t been a lot of research to confirm this benefit. And there are likely better natural ways to improve your skin health. All the same, drinking yerba mate can help you stay hydrated — which is key to skin health. So count any skin benefits as a possible bonus.
8. It has anti-cancer properties
Research performed in labs has shown that yerba mate does have a cytotoxic effect on cancer cells. In other words, when cancer cells are exposed to yerba mate, they die off.
While this proves that yerba mate has some anti-cancer properties, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it can help prevent or treat cancer. People have long believed that yerba mate has a protective effect against cancer but, so far, there haven’t been any studies to confirm this.
What are the side effects of yerba mate?
Yerba mate is a stimulant, so it can cause many of the same side effects as other caffeinated drinks. This means that yerba mate can cause you to have trouble sleeping, especially if you drink it late in the day. It can also cause you to feel like your heart is racing, especially if you drink large amounts of it. And while people say that yerba mate causes you to feel less jittery and nervous than coffee does, it can still cause these symptoms as well.
Drinking yerba mate has also been linked with higher levels of esophageal cancer. This association only exists because many people drink yerba mate at very high temperatures, though. It has nothing to do with drinking yerba mate itself.
The truth is that drinking any hot beverage is linked with esophageal cancer. Yerba mate is linked with esophageal cancer simply because lots of people happen to drink it when it’s very hot. If you drink yerba mate at lower temperatures, you aren’t at an increased risk of developing esophageal cancer.
How do you drink yerba mate?
In South America, yerba mate is traditionally brewed by filling a gourd with the tea leaves and pouring hot water over it. People then drink it using a metal straw. You can drink it unsweetened or sweetened with sugar.
In North America, yerba mate is often packaged into tea bags. It’s brewed by dipping the tea bag into hot water. Some companies also sell it as a cold beverage or add it as an ingredient to energy drinks.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, yerba mate does have caffeine. It also has theobromine, and theophylline, which are other stimulants also found in coffee and in other teas. Yerba mate contains about 1% to 2% caffeine by dry weight. This is less than coffee or tea, but you typically use a lot more yerba mate to brew a single cup of it, so the actual caffeine content in a serving of yerba mate can vary a lot.
Yerba mate has been found to have a lot of health benefits. Some of these include lowering your blood pressure and cholesterol, helping to control your diabetes, and having anti-inflammatory properties. Researchers have also identified a range of health benefits in coffee, too.
There isn’t a lot of research that compares yerba mate and coffee head-to-head, so it’s hard to say if one is really better than the other.
Most of the studies showing health benefits of yerba mate had participants drinking it at least once a day. Some studies that demonstrated health benefits even had people drink it three times a day. What this means is that it’s not dangerous to drink yerba mate every day. In fact, it’s probably healthy to do so.
But keep in mind that there are many yerba mate products on the market now. Some contain a lot of sugar. Research findings don’t apply to these types of products.
Anyone who needs to avoid caffeine should also stay away from yerba mate. This includes anyone with heart arrhythmias and people with sleep disorders like insomnia. Children and people who are pregnant or nursing should also be careful with yerba mate because of its caffeine content. Lastly, since yerba mate is a diuretic (it makes you pee), people with overactive bladders should avoid yerba mate as well.
The bottom line
Yerba mate is a beverage that has been consumed for centuries. Indigenous communities have long used it as a social and medicinal drink. Yerba mate contains caffeine and other stimulants, so it’s often used to increase wakefulness and alertness.
Because yerba mate has been gaining in popularity worldwide, there’s increasing attention to its health benefits. In addition to being good for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes, yerba mate has been shown to help with inflammation and weight loss. It’s been thought that yerba mate has anti-cancer properties and can help improve your skin, but studies haven’t confirmed these claims.
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References
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