Green Tea Benefits
The history of Green Tea is a long and exotic one, with the ancient Chinese long extolling the virtues of the drink and placing great faith in its life giving and healing properties. It wasn’t until the 1700′s that tea found its way to European shores, but only recently have the benefits of green tea been fully realised in the western world.
There is a lot written on the web about green tea benefits, much of it anecdotal but also now backed up scientifically and the list of ailments green tea is claimed to be able to cure or prevent is extensive indeed. It includes cures for digestive problems, the ability to improve the time it takes to heal wounds, purification of the blood and detoxification of poisons.
Scientists continue to investigate claims of its health advantages, but study after study has shown that drinking green tea has curative or preventative powers. It is claimed that Green tea can:
- Reduce cholesterol
- Shrink tumors/cause cancerous cells to die
- Improve blood vessel function
- Slow the passage of glucose in diabetics and regulate insulin levels
- Lower blood pressure
- Reduce triglycerides
- Provide protection against heart attack and stroke
- Act as an anti-inflammatory and promotes the growth of good bacteria in the intestine
- Staves off Alzheimer’s – investigations taking place suggest it may work on Parkinson’s as well
- Inhibit viral infections
- Fight bad breath
- Trigger weight loss
Of course these are not guaranteed, but people have reported benefit in all of these areas to varying degrees. How is this possible? Scientists attribute the miraculous healing benefits of green tea to the high concentration of antioxidants found in both the tea leaves in the wild and the steeped tea that we drink.
Antioxidants are vary importing in neutralising the effect of something called free radicals in the human body. Free radicals
are the atoms that are thought to accelerate ageing and damage skin. Ultimately Free radicals have in their place in biology and we should not strive to eliminate them altogether, but we can combat the types of free radicals whose cumulative effect is harmful to our bodies with Antioxidants.
Usually our antioxidant intake come from fruits and vegetables, and, not surprisingly, in tea. But studies show that green tea has 8-10 times more antioxidants than fruits and vegetables, another reason to cultivate the tea-drinking habit.
July 18 2010 12:49 pm | nutrition