As an oasis is to the dessert, or a cool breeze to a hot summer night, so is green tea to cholesterol.
Millions of people suffer from high cholesterol due to years and years of having a bad diet. Green tea can reverse much of this damage and can actually lower cholesterol.
As western science continues to advance thanks to computers, we now know how triglycerides and LDL contribute to cholesterol. In this advanced age, it seems incredible that a centuries old beverage like green tea can be the source of so much exciting new research.
If green tea was just good at lowering cholesterol, that would be reason enough to drink it. But green tea also has anti-cancer ingredients! Now before you doubt, you need to know the latest research done by credible universities and organizations. At the University of Purdue, researchers found that green tea actually inhibits the growth of cancer cells in the body! At the University of Kansas, researchers found the link between the low levels of heart disease in Japan even though more than half of the population are smokers! It turns out most Japanese drink green tea and that green tea has a chemical called EGCG in it. Researchers found that EGCG helps prevent cancer. But perhaps the most telling study of all was done by the National Cancer Institute. In a medical journal, they reported the results of a study on esophageal cancer in China. Their conclusion was that green tea reduced the risk of esophageal cancer in Chinese men and women by over fifty five percent!
The benefits of green tea go on with new research that suggests green tea may also lower high blood pressure. The problem with this research though is that they say you need to drink 5 to 10 cups of green tea a day to lower your blood pressure. That is too much tea drinking for most people.
For more that 4,000 years the Chinese have known about the medicinal benefits of green tea since using it to treat everything from headaches to depression. So it is not just green tea and cholesterol or green tea and cancer; it is also green tea and depression!
Drinking tea also is reported to be helpful with rheumatoid arthritis, Cardiovascular disease, infection, and impaired immune function.
Scientists have determined that green teas healing properties come from catechin polyphenols like epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is a proven anti-cancer compound. Polyphenols appear to limit and counter some of the negative effects of smoking and a fatty diet as seen in the Japanese population.
There's more! It is not just green tea and cholesterol or cancer; it is also green tea and weight loss. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a report that found out that men who were given a combination of caffeine and green tea extract burned more calories than those given only caffeine.
There are also studies being done on green tea and tooth decay. Green tea has bacteria killing compounds that help prevent tooth decay.
Why is it that it is green tea and cholesterol not oolong tea or black tea? As we all know there are 3 types of tea, green, oolong and black. All of these come from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. But why green? Green tea leaves are steamed, which prevents the EGCG compound from being oxidized while black and oolong tea leaves are made from dried or fermented leaves, which causes loss of EGCG.
The Chinese have certainly contributed to our understanding of the health benefits of drinking green tea.
There is new research coming out all the time about the health benefits of drinking green tea.
Posted under Tea
