In China, green tea has been used as a medicine for more than 4,000 years. Today there has been extensive study on green teas role in possibly fighting cancer and heart disease. There are also researchers who claim that green tea lowers cholesterol, prevents diabetes, strokes, dementia, and burns calories. With all the valuable research on green tea and its benefits, this article will explore the concept of whether or not the study on green tea and its benefits are primarily influenced by the lifestyle of the person drinking the tea. The vast majority of research on green tea has been done in the east and is common place in that culture. Are westerners able to reap the same benefits of the tea, (deemed by some as a “wonder drug”), as their eastern counterparts?
Benefits of Green Tea :
Green tea is abundant in a class of polyphenos known as catechins. The strongest catechins in green tea that is thought to be the contributor to its health benefits is a powerful antioxidant called epigallacatechin gallate (EGCG). Some of the health benefits associated with drinking green tea is:
- Helps increase mental awareness
- Regulates blood sugar
- Helps curb appetite
- Prevents tooth decay
- Helps improve the ratio of good (HDL) cholesterol to bad (LDL) cholesterol
- Help prevent food poisoning
- Prevented of lessened the reoccurrence rate amongst certain cancers
Researchers: On the Subject of Green Tea Benefits :
Nieca Golberg, M.D., cardiologist, medical director of the New York University Women’s Heart Center, and spokeswoman for the American heart Association believes the outcomes of the results from green tea usage are probably due in large part to a large consumption of fish and soy protein that are consumed in grand scale by easterners. But Golgerg is also in agreement with other experts in the field of health on the fact that powerful antioxidants found in green tea helps in maintaining good health.
Tsk-Hang Chan, PHD, professor emeritus in the department of chemistry at McGill University in Montreal says that in order to get the most out of the benefits of green tea,
“We must first overcome poor bioavailability”. Chan has gotten successful results from studies conducted on mice for the purpose of shrinking prostate cancer tumors.
Researchers in November 1999, from a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition at the University in Geneva Switzerland, found that men, who were given green tea that contained caffeine, burned more calories than those who were given just caffeine or a placebo.
As researchers observed the lower incidence of heart disease among the French as opposed to Americans, they found that it was the resveratrol which is a polyphenol found in the skin of the red grape that was responsible. For years this baffled researchers because it is known that the French consume a diet rich in fat. It is thought by researchers, that the polyphenol limits the negative effects of a fatty diet.
The University of Kansas did a study in 1997 that concluded that EGCG is twice as powerful as resevratrol due to the fact that heart disease among Japanese men is relatively low, even though a large percentage of them smoke (75%).
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