When a study in her lab showed that mate tea drinkers had experienced a significant increase in the activity of an enzyme that promotes HDL (good) cholesterol while lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol, University of Illinois scientist Elvira de Mejia headed for Argentina where mate tea has been grown and taken medicinally for centuries.
She returned with a five-year agreement with La Universidad Nacional de Misiones to cooperate in the study of 84 genotypes of mate tea, both cultivated and wild, never-before-studied, varieties.
Sources: