According to researchers, the quantity of healthful antioxidants in most saleable bottled tea is very little. The scientists also say that the amount of antioxidants in home-brewed green or black tea is much more than bottled tea.

To measure the level of polyphenols, scientists purchased six brands of bottled tea from the superstore.

Shiming Li, the study author, said that half of the bottles had ‘virtually no’ antioxidants and the rest had only small amount of polyphenols. The scientists used high performance liquid chromatography technique to know the amount of antioxidants in the bottles.

Polyphenols are a group of natural antioxidants with anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, and anti-diabetic properties. They help in preventing lot of diseases like cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.

The samples had 81, 43, 40, 13, 4, and 3 mg of polyphenols per 16-ounce (473 ml) bottle.

People have misconception that consuming tea is healthy because they contain lot of antioxidants, but the reality is that all the commercial bottled tea have hardly any polyphenols.

Bottled drinks often have large amounts of sugar, which is not good for health-conscious consumers.

The study results were presented at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Boston.