You've likely heard that green tea was good for you, but how? And what makes it different from other types of tea? Can it help prolong your life? It just might.
Green tea has been used as a medicine in China for at least 4,000 years, to treat everything from headaches to depression. Researchers have found that it contains a compound that inhibits the growth of cancer cells. (Click here for a more technical explanation of the compound.) This compound can also help alleviate other medical conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, high cholesterol levels, cariovascular disease, infection, and impaired immune function.
Researchers have also recently found that green tea can even help dieters! In one study, men who were given a combination of caffeine and green tea extract burned more calories than those given only caffeine or a placebo. Why not kickstart your metabolism while protecting yourself against cancer by adding green tea to your diet?
What makes green tea different from the rest? Even though it's made from the same plant as black tea, the leaves are steamed instead of fermented. This prevents the special health-giving compound from being oxidized and transformed into something else.
In other research that studied life spans, they found that among the groups who lived the longest were those with diets high in vegetables and low in fat. However some of the oldest people in the world were teachers of the Japanese tea ceremony. These women drank more green tea than the average population and not only lived long, healthy lives, they remained active to the very end.
Well, I'm a believer. I'm off to brew myself a cuppa green tea!
3 comments:
I just can't gag it down. It's way too bitter for me. Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!
Bitter? Hmm, I guess I don't really notice it. Some people put honey in theirs. I like mine straight up. You could also make it weaker so there's less bitterness to it.
Thanks for blogging.
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