NOTE: This is not medical advise. Consult your doctor especially if you are diabetic. Also if you are susceptible to low blood sugar, be sure to monitor your levels.

I follow quite a few IG accounts that have to do with health and pharmaceutical drugs. I have a huge saved list of posts under “health” – everything from cancer therapies to drug breakthroughs. 

So I found this post https://www.instagram.com/reel/DaGJc_DFdBX/?igsh=d3RhcWd4eGkyMGY5 that referenced a research that gave a set of people 1 to 3g of ground bay leaves (same one you use for flavoring food such as jollof rice) daily for one month and the result which persisted after the one month included 40% lower LDL (the “bad” cholesterol), 23% lower blood sugar, and 34% lower triglycerides. 

The post claims the powder (added to food) is better than drinking the bay leaf as tea, but the issue with the powder is that it’s difficult to grind bay leaves into fine powder – of course you can find ground bay leaves for sale on the internet. If it is not ground to find powder, it can harm your esophagus and intestinal track as the small pieces tend to have sharp edges.

Instead, I ordered a $20 dried bay leaves pack (16 oz or 454g) from Walmart, and prepared it as follows:

• 120 g of dry leaves
• Bring to boiling (point) then boil for 5 minutes in 9 cups of water – enough to cover the leaves once it starts boiling and leaves soften – you can press the leaves down with a spoon once it starts to soften.
• Simmer (low to medium heat) for another 15 mins
• Let it cool down, then remove the leaves
• Strain the tea through a coffee filter to ensure no residue remains in it
• Transfer tea to storage containers and refrigerate – I used a couple of taco glass jars that each hold 4 cups
• Drink 1/4 cup daily (I add enough water to make a full glass cup) for a month.

Here’s how I got to 1/4 cup per day. A Google search suggests a cup of tea made from 1-3 leaves per day is enough to be therapeutic. 120g is roughly 93 leaves (or 3 leaves x 31 days). I got 8 cups of tea from the leaves. 8 cups divided by 31 days is approximately 1/4 cup per day. I have one of those graduated glass cups (pictured) so it’s easy to measure it out daily. 

I should be seeing my primary care physician towards the end of the month, and will get bloodwork done which includes fasting blood sugar and cholesterol, and if I can add triglycerides – great. The plan is to compare it with the last bloodwork I had earlier this year. Fingers crossed.

July 4, 2026.  

Second time making the tea, boiled it for about 10mins and let it simmer for maybe 15mins. Then I left it sit for close to a day before straining it through the coffee filter. Seems darker so I guess more of it is infused into the water (left is the new batch, and right is the original batch).

Update: I took it for about 6 weeks. My LDL went from 99 to 80. About 19% reduction. To be clear, I am on 10mg Rosuvastatin as well but I have been on that for a few years so that can’t be the cause of the change. Unfortunately the others (HDL = 65 to 60, Triglycerides = 81 to 90, Glucose 83 to 88) tracked the wrong way for some reason. Some of these is likely due to diet (lots of carbs, little greens) and lack of exercise recently – will work on improving those areas.

Conclusion: bay leaf tea might remain part of my daily regimen for as long as I can be disciplined enough to make the tea regularly, and remember to actually drink it daily.