Green Tea Not Just for Slimming

Do you realize, that the various menus of food and cosmetic ingredients are now fortified with green tea? If you've enjoyed the Green Tea Frappuccino, or massage with cream green tea that is fragrant, you certainly will instantly remember.

Many manufacturers of food and beverages and cosmetics that are now increasingly aware of the benefits of green tea for humans. In the past you might only know him as a slimming drink. But green tea turned out to store a variety of benefits to other health. If you may not know it, or even to have forgotten, this article can be a reminder.

1. Reducing cancer risk
The content of polyphenols, antioxidant ingredients in green tea helps keep cancer cells do not remain in the body. The way to prevent their growth, and combating the production of new blood vessels that tumors need to grow. Various studies have found that people who drink green tea regularly will reduce the risk of breast cancer, colon, prostate, stomach, and esophagus.

2. Soothes skin
If your skin is scratched or scuffed, take the rest of your green tea. Dip a cotton bud or a little cotton in green tea, then apply to the wound. Tea is a natural antiseptic ingredients that will relieve itching or swelling. Try also in the inflamed skin, sunburn, or swollen eyelids.

3. Protecting skin from sun exposure
You started to see green tea used as cosmetic ingredients such as sunscreens, moisturizers, and creams to body scrubs or creambath? Results of laboratory tests indeed proved that green tea applied directly to the skin (or consumed) may help prevent skin cancer caused by exposure to sunlight.

4. Being a blood pressure remained normal
Blood pressure is normal or healthy is in the range of 120/80 or below. To keep it in the normal range, make it a habit to drink green tea (a half cup of course) to reduce the risk of hypertension by 50 percent. Materials that have benefits for it is the polyphenols (especially those known as ECGC). Polyphenols help keep blood vessels to contract and raise blood pressure.

5. Protect memory
Another benefit of green tea is to maintain brain health. Adults who regularly eat two cups of green tea a day will reduce the risk of cognitive problems in half, rather than who consume less. As has been known earlier, tea has a high content of antioxidants that will fight against the destruction of brain neurons from free radicals. This destruction resulted in neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

6. Stay young
The younger and healthier arteries, you are also getting healthier and younger. Prevent for plaque did not grow up in your blood vessels. If left unchecked, plaque will increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, leading to premature aging, and sucking your energy. For that you need to consume about 280 grams of green tea a day, which also will hinder the body's absorption of fat-clogged arteries and cholesterol.

7. Lose weight
Green tea will work to accelerate the process of burning calories in your body. Is not this the benefits of green tea are most desirable?

Healthy Benefits of Tea

Since the first tea is known to have many benefits for health. By drinking tea can make the body more relaxed in living activities. Tea can be consumed in various ways, brewed with hot water or added with ice, just delicious. There is even a kind of tea leaves can be eaten.

Tea processing is the result of shoots (young leaves) of tea plant (Camellia sinensis) is used as a beverage ingredient. There are various legends of the origin of tea, but the most popular is the legend of Emperor Shen-Nung from Yunan province of China in 2737 BC. While it is cooking water drink, with a leaf accidentally from dry twigs he uses as firewood, fly and submerged into the water kettle. Water steeping the leaves are then produce a new beverage that distinctive aroma, which until now was known as a tea.

A good tea is produced from the shoots (pecco) plus 2-3 young leaves, because the young leaves are rich in polyphenol compounds, caffeine and amino acids. These compounds will affect the quality of color, aroma and flavor of tea.

The primary basis of tea processing is the use of the existing oxidation of polyphenol compounds in tea leaves. The oxidation process is commonly called fermentation. Based on the nature of fermentation, known as four different types of tea, namely:

1. Black tea
Black tea is easily recognizable in the market because it is black and the most widely consumed. In the process of fermentation occurs given a full opportunity (perfect chemical changes so that almost all the tannin content of fermented into theaflavins and thearubigin) that will change the color of tea leaves from green to brownish and with the drying process to turn black.

  2. Oolong tea
Generally produced from the tea plant that grows in semi-tropical regions. The process is the same as black tea, but the fermentation process only a portion (approximately 30-70% shorter and the change lasted half perfect that still contain some tannin and some compound derivatives) so that the color and aroma of black tea and green tea.

3. Green tea
Tea leaf fermentation were not given the chance (almost no experience the process of chemical change). Usually the bud immediately processed with heat / steam to stop the enzyme activity so that the same as the raw leaf (originally tea leaves), so besides the color is still green are also still contains tannins that are relatively high.

 4.White tea
Is the best type of tea due to get it, just taken from one shoot every single tree, which is the highest and the main shoot. Highest antioxidant content. In the process, tea leaves left to wilt naturally so that the color to white.

The quality of tea is a collection of properties owned by the tea, both physical and chemical properties. Both of these properties have been owned since I was a bud or obtained as a result of handling and processing techniques are performed.

The content of chemical compounds in tea leaves consist of three major groups, each of which has benefits for health, namely: 

1. Polyphenols

Polyphenols are antioxidants types of bioflavonoids that are 100 times more effective than vitamin C and 25 times that of vitamin E. Benefits:

o Lowers cholesterol levels

o Lowering the pressure and blood sugar levels

o Helps prevent the occurrence of renal and gall stones

o Streamlining digestion

o Dissolve fat and prevents bad cholesterol

2. Caffeine

Elements of caffeine in tea fewer in number than the coffee. Benefits:

o behave as a mild stimulant on the central nervous system that facilitate the circulation of blood to the brain

o By drinking tea regularly will increase the level of memory, cognitive performance, and the feeling of pleasant mood.

3. Essential oil

Tea also contains proteins that felt big role in the formation of aroma. Benefits:

o Dissolve fat

o Streamlining the digestive and circulatory

There are various benefits of tea consumption on health, including:

• Lowers the risk of cancer

Various studies of tea consumption, indicating a role in reducing the risk of cancer. Polyphenol compounds in tea can provide protection against carcinogenic substances. ECCG (epigallocatechin gallate) found in green tea is the active compounds that play a role in preventing cancer.

Epidemiological studies in Japan showed inhabited the main producing areas of green tea is very little level of death due to cancer. Studies in Iowa, the United States against 35 thousand post-menopausal women, reported that tea has cancer-fighting properties. The study concluded that those who consumed at least two cups of tea each day will reduce the risk of bladder cancer (40%) and digestive tract cancers (68%) than those who did not consume tea.

Tea can prevent and cure disorders of the kidneys because it can neutralize hydroxyl radicals that cause disorders of protein metabolism in the kidney.

• Lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease

Cardiovascular disease, among others, associated with high levels of lipids (fats), blood and blood pressure. Several studies have shown that tea has properties reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by lowering cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

Prevention is happening because tea polyphenols have the ability to inhibit the absorption of cholesterol and inhibits platelet clumping of cells that would prevent the blockage of blood vessels.

• Losing weight

A recent study conducted on the potential of tea is its role in weight loss. Results of research showed that green tea is known to have potential as thermogenesis so as to increase burning of calories and fat that have an impact on weight loss.

• Prevent osteoporosis

Osteoporosis or bone loss is one of the problems facing post-menopausal women because the hormone production estogen as a trigger bone growth, has stalled. Osteoporosis causes bone mass to shrink and break easily.

A recent studies showed that drinking tea regularly to maintain the integrity of bones and prevent osteoporosis. Active compounds contained in tea act like weak estrogen hormone that helps protect bones against brittleness process.

The China Study on Wheat

Denise Minger has just put up another great China Study post that's worth reading if you haven't already. Denise has been busy applying her statistics skills to the mountain of data the study collected. She noted in a previous post that wheat intake was strongly associated with coronary heart disease (CHD), the quintessential modern cardiovascular disease. I, and several other people, requested that she work her mathmagic to see if the association could be due to some other factor. For example, wheat is eaten mostly in the Northern regions of China, and CHD rates are generally higher at higher latitudes (vitamin D insufficiency?). This is true in Europe as well, and may be partly responsible for the purported benefits of the Mediterranean diet. You can mathematically determine if the association between wheat and CHD is simply due to the fact that wheat eaters live further North.

To make a long story short, nothing could explain the association except wheat itself, even latitude. Furthermore, she found a strong association between wheat intake and body mass index, typically a predictor of fat mass although we can't say that for sure. That finding echos a previous study in China where wheat eaters were more likely to be overweight than rice eaters (1, 2). Head over to Denise's post for the full story.

The China Study has major limitations built into its basic design, due to the fact that it was observational and pooled the blood samples of many individuals. Therefore, its findings can never prove anything, they can only suggest or be consistent with hypotheses. However, the study also has some unique advantages, such as a diversity of diets and regions, and the fact that people had presumably been eating a similar diet for a long time. I feel that Denise's efforts are really teasing out some useful information from the study that have been de-emphasized by other investigators.

There has been so little serious investigation into the health effects of wheat in the general population that I have to rely mostly on indirect evidence, such as the observation that the diseases of civilization tend to closely follow the introduction of white flour around the globe. Researchers studying celiac disease and other forms of gluten allergy, and the efforts of the paleolithic diet community in spreading that information (for example, Loren Cordain and Pedro Bastos), have been major contributors to understanding the health effects of wheat. Denise's analysis is one of the strongest pieces of evidence I've come by so far. One of these days, I'll post all of my references incriminating wheat. There are quite a few, although none of them is the smoking gun. I think there's enough indirect evidence that investigators should begin taking the idea seriously that wheat, particularly in the form of industrial flour products, may contribute to chronic disease in more than just a small subset of the population.

The Healthy Benefits of Green Tea

There are various reasons why green tea as one health drink soft drink producers. Here are 10 real benefits of green tea has been researched by experts, so you ought to replace fizzy drinks from your favorite list.

1. Green tea may help protect against cancer.  
The catechin  content in polyphenols found in green tea has an important role in cancer prevention.
The further study concluded that no active oxidant polyphenols, reduce the number and size of tumors, and inhibit cancer cell growth. Similar research has also specifically committed against bladder cancer, breast, ovary, esophagus (the part of the tool in the form of digestive tract that carries food from the esophagus to the stomach), lungs, pancreas, prostate, skin and stomach.

2. Green tea may help prevent atherosclerosis.  
The antioxidants in green tea is also believed to prevent fat accumulation in the blood vessels by pressing the oxidation of LDL (bad cholesterol). Antioxidants also reduce the likelihood of blood clotting and helps the arteries (blood vessels) to relax so that blood can flow.

3. Green tea can help maintain good cholesterol levels.  
Research suggests that green tea lowers total cholesterol and raise HDL (good cholesterol) in animals and humans. Polyphenols in green tea helps block the intestinal absorption process and launched its expenditure from the body.

4. Green tea can help control diabetes.  
Green tea has been used traditionally to control blood sugar in the body. Several studies have shown that green tea can help glucose regulation in the body.

5. Green tea may help fight diseases of the liver. 
Green tea seems to protect the liver from the adverse effects of toxic substances such as alcohol.

6. Weight loss.  
Green tea extract can increase metabolism and help burn fat. Some researchers speculate that the polyphenols, particularly catechins is responsible in the process of burning fat.

7. Relaxation.  
Drinking a cup of hot green tea can help produce feelings of relaxation and improve memory because the content of the amino acid L-teanin in it.

8. Green tea may help boost the immune system. 
The study, conducted by The Brigham and Women's Hospital said that teanin content in green tea increase the capacity of gamma delta T cells to fight disease and help the body fight infection.

9. Green tea helps strengthen the digestive and respiratory systems because the content of bioflavonoids.

10. Green tea is an anti-bacterial and help prevent holes in the teeth.

Drinking two to three cups of green tea a day (containing 240 to 320 mg of polyphenols) is recommended. This is the best way to get antioxidants green tea from its original state.