Zaria Rule, a grade seven learner at Cornwall Hill College, tested green rooibos tea on her diabetic pet dog, Jessie, for a school science project. She shares her findings with us.

My school peers and I completed a school science project: helping diabetic dogs. Our aim was to find out if giving diabetic dogs green rooibos tea to drink would help stabilise their blood sugar levels.

Believe it or not, but the thought came to me by hearing a lady, who suffered with diabetes, talk on the radio. She explained that she drank rooibos tea and it helped stabilise her blood sugar levels, so I thought why not try it on diabetic dogs as my family dog, Jessie, had diabetes. One day she went blind so my mom and I took her to the vet, and this is where we found out she had diabetes.

After a bit more of my own research, I found that green rooibos tea had more health benefits than normal rooibos tea did, because it was unfermented and so the project was born.

In the study trial, after four months or so, a significant change was seen in the diabetic human patients. Unfortunately, we only managed to test three dogs, including Jessie, for four weeks. But, in the end, it looked as if it worked on them as far as we could see.

The best part of the project for me is that my project inspired a family friend who suffers with diabetes to try green rooibos tea and it made him feel great and more energetic than usual! Not only Jessie benefited.