For Men's Health Month, a Case for Moving the Afternoon Cup to Rooibos
The South African Rooibos Council marked Men's Health Month with a caffeine-timing pitch from Stellenbosch physiologist Gerald Maarman; his own eight-year research program, and the trial his campaign quote actually rests on, say more than the pitch does.
For Men's Health Month in June, the South African Rooibos Council pointed men toward rooibos as a caffeine-free afternoon and evening drink, when a late coffee can cost a night's sleep.
The suggestion came from Prof. Gerald Maarman, a physiologist at Stellenbosch University, in material the council issued during the month. "Many men underestimate the impact of caffeine timing on sleep quality," Maarman said. "Switching to Rooibos in the afternoon or evening can be a simple behavioural change that supports relaxation and recovery." Rooibos, made from the leaves of the Cederberg shrub Aspalathus linearis, carries no caffeine at all, unlike coffee or true tea, so an evening cup does not stimulate the nervous system the way a late coffee does.
Maarman was plain about what the plant is not. "While Rooibos is not a medicine, the science is increasingly showing that it contains compounds that can support the body's ability to manage oxidative stress and inflammation," he said. He pointed to a 2024 systematic review in the journal Beverages and to cardioprotective work published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology. The review he cited is more guarded than his own framing: Speer et al.'s 2024 review found only eight qualifying human studies and called the evidence for rooibos's health benefits insufficient overall, even where individual trials showed a real effect. One of those trials is the Journal of Ethnopharmacology work: Marnewick et al., 2011, a controlled six-week trial in which 40 adults at cardiovascular risk drank six cups of fermented rooibos daily, and came away with more polyphenol in their blood, improved LDL and HDL cholesterol, and a 53 percent drop in TBARS, a standard marker of oxidative damage to fats. It is a real, human, quantified finding, on a specific dose the campaign material does not repeat, and it is one trial, not a settled case.
Maarman's own case for rooibos rests less on the Men's Health Month lines than on the work behind them. In an earlier interview, he described eight years of experiments testing whether rooibos protects heart cells strained by high blood pressure, work he says shows the plant helping cells clear toxins and use energy more efficiently under that strain, alongside a Rooibos Council survey of 700 men that found relatively high existing rooibos consumption. Two of his students have since carried the programme past the heart: Amy Pretorius is testing rooibos against the blood-vessel changes behind pulmonary hypertension, and Joshua Matthee is synthesising rooibos nanoparticles to test against breast cancer cells, work the profile said would produce data in 2025.
The council framed the Men's Health Month message against what it described as sustained pressure on men's health. "Men are under sustained physiological stress, often without recognising the long-term impact," Maarman said. He put rooibos forward as one small, repeatable change rather than a fix. "Small, consistent changes often deliver the most sustainable health benefits," he said. "Rooibos is not a quick fix, but it can be a meaningful part of a broader wellness routine."
Sources: George Herald, "Men's health concerns grow as stress, heart disease and sleep deprivation rise" (South African Rooibos Council, June 11, 2026); Health for Mzansi, "Dr Maarman leads the way with heart-healthy rooibos research" (January 20, 2025); Speer et al., "The Effect of Rooibos Tea (Aspalathus linearis) Consumption on Human Health Outcomes: A Systematic Literature Review" (Beverages, 2024); Marnewick et al., "Effects of rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) on oxidative stress and biochemical parameters in adults at risk for cardiovascular disease" (Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 2011).