Green Tea

One of my current addictions is GREEN TEA. It tastes delicious and it wakes me up every morning. If I drink coffee, I always feel jittery and nervous, but the medium amount of caffeine that green tea contains is the perfect perk up for my body. I have always heard positive things about green tea, but today I decided to find out what the hype really is all about. I decided to look for facts on Web MD and here are just some highlights of the benefits of green tea:

-The potential to fight heart cancer and heart disease
-May have a role in lowering cholesterol and burning fat
-The prevention of diabetes
-Prevention of strokes
-Staving off dementia

Wow! I had no idea something that I was drinking to keep me awake was also great for my physical health and well being. Unfortunately most consistent findings about the benefits of green tea are all in the lab, and not in the real world, but really if they work in the lab why wouldn't it work in the real world? This is not psychology we are talking about here where it can be about behavior and things may be different in a lab than out in the real world. Web MD suggests that the benefits may be helped with the consumption of fish and soy protein. (Something I will be working on this summer. EATING MORE FISH) Green tea's antioxidants help remove free radicals that can damage DNA and they contribute to cancer, blood clots and atherosclerosis (the hardening and narrowing of the arteries.). Unfortunately there is question about how much green tea you should drink to actually receive the benefits of the antioxidants. It is difficult to study, because you need to find groups of people that drink green tea regularly and have been for long periods of time. Even so, a few studies have shown that drinking at least two cups of green tea a day inhibits cancer growth. In China, it was shown the more green tea participants drank the less risk of developing stomach cancer, esophageal cancer, prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer and colorectal cancer. Also it was found in Japan that nearly 500 women diagnosed with Stage I and Stage II breast cancer, who drank green tea post surgery had lower recurrence of the cancer. A high correlation was shown between high consumption of green tea and a reduced risk for lung cancer (just remember correlation does not equal causation, but there are no big risks to drinking green tea so why not??).

Green tea may also be good for your heart. In Japan a study was one on 500 men and women and drinking at least four cups of green tea daily showed lower severity of coronary heart disease among the male participants (not females :( ). Another study has shown that more than 3,00 men and women found that the more tea consumed, the less severe the clogging of the hearts blood vessels, especially in women. But just drinking green tea wont do the trick, as usual, but it does not hurt. The antioxidants in green tea are dilators which improve the flexibility of blood vessels which make them less vulnerable to clogging.

Green tea is also shown to fight off obesity and lower bad cholesterol. In a Dutch study participants who drank caffeinated green tea lost more weight than those who did not (and even the group who drank the decaf showed differences in their waist lines and body weights.) 240 men were given varying amounts of green tea extract for three months and those who got the highest amount lost the most amount of fat and weight. They also had lower blood pressure and lower bad cholesterol.

The best way to get the most out of green tea is to simply drink it! Green tea will not cure anything or be a drug but it can really compliment the rest of your diet.


I also found this video. (Yes it is a little cheesy but it brings up some really great points. Plus it is only a three minutes long so take a look!)





A great point that I found particularly useful was the caffeine content. It doesn't pick you up and then drop you like coffee or give you the jitters. It is a perfect amount.

To bring both sides of the story to the table, I decided to also look at the benefits of coffee for all you coffee drinkers out there. Coffee has these benefits:

-Counters heart disease and stroke (so does green tea)
-Higher consumption of coffee is related to lower Parkinson's disease, dementia and Alzheimer's risk.
-Decreased risk of liver cancer (but cause and effect is still uncertain)
-Less likely to have type II diabetes


Even though these are all positive things, coffee does not show to have the same antioxidants that green tea gives you. Also with coffee you are more likely to pack on calories by adding sugar and creamer, which really does add up. Many of the studies (also like the studies on green tea) there is no proof for the correlations. But the studies done with coffee ask people about their coffee drinking habits, which means that there could be lifestyle choices that coffee drinkers make that non coffee drinkers do not. (Of course this is a problem in all studies, but the variation could be messed up).

If you are a regular coffee drinker I would suggest switching over to green tea! It has great health benefits and it really does have the perfect amount of caffeine to wake you up, without the crash. It may not work for everyone but it can't really hurt to try! Make it a challenge to substitute your regular coffee with a cup of green tea!



In blogging news:

I am teaching a guitar lesson tonight! I absolutely love teaching guitar to kids and it is a great, fun way to bring in some extra cash. This summer I am going to put up a profile on www.betterfly.com and possibly teach to more beginners. If I do this I will need to find a perfect book that I can recommend my students to buy, so it will be easier to have a guideline. I feel that my teaching style is too jumpy for my students to learn everything consistently (but they still seem to be showing GREAT improvement.) It is just difficult because of school, which means that I don't get to see Ben or Rob for a great deal of the year. Once I really get settled somewhere I hope I can keep the lessons up! It is really good for me to improve my skills also, and soon I will not have Tim Breon in my life and I will have to work on my own to keep getting better. (Such a scary thought!)