Tea and Your Heart
A lot of the studies and research surrounding the health benefits of tea have focused quite a bit on the effects tea has on your heart and circulatory system. And this is another area of research which is showing excellent promise.
Different types of studies have been done about tea and heart health, one of which was a simple population study which showed people who drink at least three or more cups of tea regularly each day have reduced risks for both heart disease and stroke.
Other, more clinical studies with Black Tea suggest that the reduced risk factors are probably caused by improvements tea creates for cholesterol levels - it lowers LDL, or “bad” cholesterol - and blood vessel functioning. Tea also reduces damage in the body from oxidation and free radicals.
Researchers don’t quite know how the flavonoids in tea work, but a few studies indicate they work …
Tea and The Immune System
When your body’s natural immune system is weak, it leaves you open to become sick more often. People with Diabetes and HIV for instance, have weakened immune systems, and they’re much more susceptible to catching colds, getting the flu, or developing more severe sicknesses and illnesses. Research shows that both black and green tea can help with strengthening the body’s immune system too though, by increasing the amount of gamma delta T cells which help the body fight off infections, illness, and various types of disease.
Tea seems to have wonderful health benefits on the body’s immune system functionality. Both green and black tea offer this benefit, but a specific substance in Black tea has gotten some reasearchers fairly excited. The substance is known as L-theanine, which works to prepare the body’s immune system to fight off bacteria, infections, fungus, and viruses too. Essentially, this substance seems …
Tea and Weight Loss
Not only does tea help keep your body healthier, there is also evidence that green tea specifically can help with obesity problems. Green tea has been found to significantly increase the calories a body burns in the 24 hours after drinking it. This increased energy expenditure by the body is due to a boost in the metabolism, and the body actually increases its fat burning activity from green tea as well.
The metabolism boost can be seen with a study done in Switzerland, which showed that men who were given caffeine along with a green tea extract actually burned more calories each day than the men who were given a placebo with caffeine. Green Tea has caffeine in it naturally, but as you can see that was not the only reason for the boost in calorie burning. Green tea has catechin polyphenols which actually increase the rate that …
Tea and Cancer
The part of tea that makes it so great for a variety of health issues is thought to be the flavonoids, because these are believed to fight damage from free radicals. Free radicals are what cause aging, wrinkles, chronic illness, disease, and cancer.
Tea however, seems to inhibit uncontrolled cell growth - or cell proliferation - which is normally seen when a person has cancer. Tea also seems to actually cause those extra cells to die as well though, and this process is known as apoptosis.
A lot of research has been done with tea’s effect on cancer, and so far the results are considered preliminary. Scientists are excited about doing more in depth research though, so many more active studies have been put into motion.
Some of the current indications though, look extremely promising for effectively fighting cancer. One study for instance, found that smokers who drank at least four …
Tea’s Health Benefits
Most people have heard at least a little bit of the excitement about the health benefits of green tea. Most of those same people though, don’t seem to know that Black tea is just as healthy in many ways. In fact, green tea and black tea come from the same tree: The Camellia sinensis.
The primary difference between Green and Black tea is how they’re processed. Green tea is kept in a more natural state after harvesting. It’s sometimes just steamed or fried in a pan lightly actually, which allows it to retain more of it’s natural and powerful health properties. Black tea is fermented though, and this is what gives it the darker color and stronger flavor.
In most research study cases, the results are similar for both green tea or black tea tests. Some however, have studied green tea only while others have studied black tea only. And …
