A recent study, led by Mario Ferruzzi from Purdue University, suggests that citrus juices and vitamin C enable more of green teas unique antioxidants to remain in the system after digestion. The research points towards high increases in the amount of catechins absorbed when green tea is complemented with citrus fruits or vitamin C. This is due to a stabilizing effect that the additives have on catechins during digestion. According to the findings, lemon juice caused 80% of teas antioxidants to remain, whereas ascorbic acid or vitamin C, widely used to prolong products shelf-life, increased recovered levels of two main catechins by six and thirteen-fold respectively.
