Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Green Tea Concentrate Health Benefits

There are many things that you should know about the health benefits of green tea concentrate. There are simply too many things to know about of green tea concentrate and you should be sure that you have all of the facts before you make up your mind as to whether or not you want to use green tea in your diet.

What Does It Do For You?

You have probably noticed that green tea is getting a lot of air time these days. Green tea, and therefore of green tea concentrate is something that can provide you with more health benefits than you are probably aware of. First of all, drinking green tea concentrate can help you to improve your memory, and it can also do things like boost your immune system and your metabolism.

Both of these things can help you get healthier in general, and they can also help you lose weight and be more active. All in all, drinking green tea concentrate is a great way to get healthier, no matter what else you do in your life for your health.

Why Concentrate?

Many people like to drink green tea on a regular basis because of all of the health benefits. While this is great, the fact remains that sometimes there are companies that put things in the tea that you simply don’t want there. Some people choose to bypass the uncertainty of what is in their tea by having green tea concentrate and using it to make their own drinks that they know contain nothing but the green tea.

There are other reasons to use green tea concentrate instead of green tea. For instance, for some people, the ingredients in the tea itself don’t agree with their bodies. With the green tea concentrate they can use other ingredients to make the green tea easier for them to digest.
They can also use the green tea concentrate in other forms, and this way they can still get the health benefits of the green tea, but in a way that is better overall for their bodies. Using of green tea concentrate is a great way to make sure that this happens.

Remember that of green tea concentrate is not for everyone. If you are considering making green tea part of your regular diet, you should consult your doctor to make sure that it is going to work perfectly with you. If the doctor thinks it will work, you can decide whether you want to drink the tea, or to use the of green tea concentrate.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Green Tea And Some Of Its Benefits

Three to five cups of green tea a day can do you a lot of good.

Tea, especially green tea has long been known for its medicinal benefits. It helps digestion, boost metabolism and even wards off cancer and heart disease.

According to whether it is fermented or not, tea can be divided into 3 types:

  • green tea ¨C not fermented
  • oolong tea ¨C partially fermented
  • black tea ¨C fermented

While people may prefer black tea or oolong tea, green tea has more healthy benefits. As it's dried straight after picking, it keeps most of its valuable polyphenols while its cousins ¨C black tea and oolong tea lose most of theirs in the process of fermentation. Green tea has a lot more polyphenols than black tea or oolong tea. What's the deal of those polyphenols things, you may wonder? They are known as powerful antioxidants, which remove free radicals from the body. Free radicals in the body's cells are very bad. They are very unstable and tend to react negatively with other important molecules like DNA, causing malfunctions and injury on the cellular level. They produce destruction that may therefore pave the way for diseases like heart disease and cancer. Green tea contains rich polyphenols that play an active role in removing the free radicals from the body. Antioxidants in tea are also known to prevent death from second heart attack by helping blood vessels relax, thus blood can flow through more easily. As a result, that can help lower blood pressure and reduce stress on the heart. Studies show green tea drinkers have 50% lower risk of developing stomach or esophageal compared to non green tea drinkers.


One final benefit of green tea drinking can help lose some weight. It's believed some of its polyphenols and caffeine work together to boost the body's metabolism, thus boost our energy burning system.

How much tea shall we drink? Generally, three to five cups a day is fairly enough for us to get its medical benefits.

Shall we have a cup of tea now?

Friday, June 26, 2009

Green Tea: The Japanese Secret To Good Health

Cancer remains a number-one killer in countries around the world. Therefore, it should come as little surprise that medical researchers are exploring new avenues in an effort to find ways to attack cancer.

The investigation into alternative cancer therapies often begins by examining the cultures of specific nations in an effort to determine whether diet or other customs could help unlock the secret to curing this dreaded disease. Since green tea has been a staple of the Japanese diet for centuries, it’s not surprising that new attention is being paid to the tea’s therapeutic benefits.
In recent years, doctors and scientific researchers have been focusing new attention on the idea of drinking green tea in an effort to keep cancer at bay. It’s been thought that the beverage possesses certain natural properties which make it a likely cancer preventative.

Studying Green Tea In-Depth

In order to look at this issue in more depth, researchers Kazue Imai, Kenji Suga, and Kei Nakachi of the Saitama Cancer Center Research Institute in Saitama, Japan, decided to examine the effects of green tea drinking among the Japanese. In an article entitled “Cancer-Preventive Effects of Drinking Green Tea Among a Japanese Population” in Preventative Medicine magazine, the research team explored the therapeutic benefits of green tea at length.
When the researchers began their investigation, there had been a number of studies indicating that the main ingredient of green tea, epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG, was anti-carcinogenic. However, there was little evidence to suggest that EGCG could prevent cancer in human beings. While some human studies had been conducted, the results were far from conclusive.
The Japanese research team strongly believed that it was absolutely critical to conduct an in-depth study in an Asian nation, given the popularity of tea consumption in the Orient. Ultimately, the Japanese scientists found that those Japanese subjects who drank green tea were less likely to develop cancer. This was particularly true among women who consumed more than ten cups of green tea each day.



A Natural Cancer Prevention Tool

The rate of cancer was low among both men and women who consumed large amounts of green tea. In addition, a study of 384 cancer patients indicated that increased consumption of green tea was linked with a delay in the onset of cancer. Again, this phenomenon was most prevalent among women who consumed more than ten cups of green tea each day. The average delay for the onset of cancer was four years—four years of enhanced quality of life for the subjects involved.

To a Western mind, drinking ten cups of green tea daily can seem mind-boggling—especially if one has difficulty consuming eight glasses of water each day. It should be noted that, on average, the subjects were probably consuming 150 ml of green tea per cup. That would amount to about 300 to 400 milligrams of EGCG—a healthy amount, by any standard.

More Powerful Than Once Thought

It has become clear that green tea is far more powerful in fighting cancer than researchers once thought. For instance, scientists recently discovered that green tea’s unique chemical makeup enables it to combat one of the key cancer-causing molecules linked to tobacco use. The ground-breaking evidence appeared in a journal published by the American Chemical Society.
In the study, researchers examined the effects of two components of green tea, EGCG and epigallocatechin, also known as EGC. These substances are close to the consistency of cancer-preventing substances in red wine, grapes, broccoli, and cabbage. The research team discovered that EGCG and EGC can inhibit a molecule that often “turns on” genes that can be harmful to the body, leading to the development of cancer.

However, it’s unclear whether the results in the science lab could be replicated in a person’s home, since the effectiveness of drinking green tea depends on how the beverage is used by the human body. In addition, there appear to be differences between varieties of green tea, so additional study is necessary to prove the beverage’s effectiveness in inhibiting potentially harmful molecular processes.

The Need for More Research

Based upon the evidence presented in the study conducted by Imai, Suga, and Nakachi, there can be little doubt that their research indicates that consuming green tea can lead to the prevention of cancer. However, additional research is definitely needed in order to determine which organs of the body could best benefit from green tea.
In other words, will drinking green tea fight stomach cancer? Breast cancer? Colon cancer? At this point, the answers to these questions remain unclear. Yet, it should be noted that laboratory tests show that green tea’s EGCG can zero in on organs in an effort to prevent cancer.
The initial research into cancer prevention using green tea is incredibly encouraging. To begin with, green tea is an ordinary part of many people’s diets, so drinking the beverage does not necessarily mean a radical lifestyle change. If people are already accustomed to consuming green tea, it stands to reason that they wouldn’t mind consuming more of it, if it would mean preventing the occurrence of cancer.

A Virtually Problem-Free Solution

Some approaches to preventing cancer may seem initially appealing, but can become decidedly less so because of the side effects involved. However, there are no toxic effects linked to green tea consumption, meaning that this cancer-fighting remedy is especially promising.
In addition, green tea appears to be a powerful cancer prevention tool. If the beverage’s therapeutic effects were limited, there wouldn’t be a great deal of interest in using it as a cancer preventative. However, the strong link between green tea consumption and cancer prevention indicated by the Japanese study means that there is good reason for people to consider adding green tea to their diets.

Effects Beyond the Orient

Some might conclude that green tea drinking only prevents cancer among Asian populations, but researchers in the field believe that would be a mistake. It’s entirely possible that, if Westerners also made green tea a significant part of their daily diet, they would also see the preventative effects.

With so many supermarkets and convenience stores in the West now stocking green tea, it may be just a matter of time before Westerners will also experience the beverage’s medicinal benefits.