Popular Chinese Herbal Tea Claims It Can Increase Life Expectancy By 10%

Li Chuyuan, chairman of the Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, the state-owned parent company of the firm behind Wanglaoji, also known by its Cantonese name Wong Lo Kat, cited a government-funded research led by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to back up the claim.

According to Shanghaiist, the research managed to find compelling results showing how Wong Lo Kat managed to increase the life expectancy of 576 lab rats. Critics, however, find the claims to be rather ridiculous, considering the experiment was performed on rats and not on humans.

This isn’t the first time Wong Lo Kat made claims of how its drinks can increase a person’s life expectancy. What made this recent announcement different is due to the supposed backing of Yin Ye, the chief executive of Shenzhen-based Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), South China Morning Post reported.

BGI is “one of the world’s genome sequencing centers” headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.

Yin clarified in a conference that he only “nodded out of good manners,” and echoed the same statement in his Weibo post later, saying, “I drink the tea but it does not mean I agree with the claim.”

Ironically, the drink has a very high sugar content, and people who have tried Wong Lo Kat wrote online that this is not ideal for people who have diabetes. When asked about the herbal tea, Fan Zhihong, professor and nutritionist at China Agricultural University, said the exact same thing.

“Whether it will extend your life or not, I do not know. I do know that if you drink a lot of it, you’ll get diabetes,” one user wrote.

Featured Image Screenshot via Miaopai