One English professor wrote a remarkable article in which he described the specificity of polyphenols as components of a diet. Among other interesting topics, the author of the article explains the fundamental difference between polyphenols and other good things such as vitamins or minerals. The difference is that polyphenols do not accumulate in the human body and begin to exert their beneficial polyphenolic effect only at a certain dosage. Well, that is, roughly speaking, if the recommended dose of any polyphenol for correction of any health problem is 10 milligrams and you need to receive it with a certain periodicity, for example, daily, it does not mean that you can have 5 mg of this polyphenol three days in a row, and then take the knockout dose of 15 mg. Everything that does not reach the reference dose, simply does not count.
And from this it follows that, unlike vitamins, “recommended daily doses” do not make sense for polyphenols. Polyphenols can be recommended for specific cases — and such recommendations, as you understand, are very individual.
Part of this tricky property of polyphenols is connected with the problem of transferring their effectiveness from laboratories to real life. In tube tests, they show themselves perfectly, because they work in pure form, in well controlled dosages and immediately. And to receive the same dosages, for example, through tea drinking is a more complex task.