• 4/18/2005
  • San Francisco, CA
  • Inside Bay Area (insidebayarea.com)

Those who import and market green tea and tea products can, by law, only say what elements are in green tea. They point out that a fully brewed cup of green tea is very high in polyphenols, flavenols, fluoride, and the cancer preventative EGCG. It also contains vitamins C, P, K and B.

Studies show that all tea contains catechins, the polyphenols that are unique to tea, but research suggests that green tea is higher in those elements than black tea, perhaps because it is a slightly fresher product than black tea. Black tea gets its flavor from oxidizing the leaves before they are dried.

Exactly what those various compounds do for the human body is being studied all over the world, at institutions such as Harvard Medical Center, University of California, Berkeley, University of Kansas, University of Geneva in Switzerland, and University of Shizuoka in Japan. Their findings have been printed in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Rutger’s University and in the American Journal of Cardiology.

Listed here are some of the believed benefits of drinking four to 10 cups of fully steeped green tea every day. The astringency in fully brewed green tea, it should be noted, is because of the great volume of antioxidants.

-The polyphenols, or antioxidants, in tea are extremely efficient at ridding the body of free radicals that tend to speed up the aging process. The polyphenols in tea were found to be more than 100 times as effective at soaking up free radicals than vitamin C, and 25 times more powerful than vitamin E.

-Polyphenols also have been shown, according to a Japanese study, to inhibit growths of various types of cancer, including mouth cancer, esophageal cancer, stomach and prostate cancers.

-Drinking tea is believed to improve the lining of blood vessels, warding against possible arteriosclerosis.

-Consuming at least 8 ounces of green tea daily is believed to lower the risk of developing kidney stones.

-The tannins and fluoride in green tea are good for the teeth and inhibit the growth of plaque which causes decay.

-Studies show that drinking green tea increases the metabolism by 4 percent, which results in burning approximately 70 calories more per day.

-Blood cells of green tea drinkers respond five times faster to germs, according to a study at the Harvard Medical School, which leads researchers to believe that drinking green tea boosts the immune system.

-Because of the blood cell research, green tea is currently being tested at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston for effectiveness in HIV therapy.

-It should be noted that some studies suggest that high doses of tea are not recommended for children, mainly because of the high fluoride content of tea.

-Green tea has about one-third the caffeine content of coffee; the longer it is steeped, the higher the antioxidant and caffeine levels. Decaffeinated green tea still contains beneficial elements, but in lower concentrations.