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The health benefits of green tea make it a good beverage for treating cancer, heart problems, cardiovascular diseases, high cholesterol levels, rheumatoid arthritis, infection, tooth decay, etc. Green tea contains an antioxidant epigallocatechin-3 gallate (EGCG) which is helpful in treating a variety of diseases.
People are preferring green tea to other beverages such as coffee and cola. Tea has always being popular in China, Japan, India and other parts of Asia; however, the numerous health benefits, ease of storing and preparing the beverage and its taste have made it popular in all parts of the world. Why is green tea so popular? Let us have a look at the health benefits of green tea in detail:
- Cancer: Scientific research over several years has shown that green tea is the most useful beverage in treating a variety of cancers. Extensive research is being carried out with indicative results to find the benefits of green tea in preventing and treating lung cancer, oral cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, pancreatic cancer, stomach cancer and prostate cancer. Green tea helps cancer patients in four ways. For the general population, it helps in preventing cancer in some cases and in other cases it delays onset of cancer. For patients who already who have cancer, green tea helps in treating cancer and also helps in prevention of recurrence of cancer.
- Oral Cancer: Research at the Department of Oral Biology and Maxillofacial Pathology, School of Dentistry, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, USA has shown that green tea induces apoptosis and selectively kills cancerous growth, thus helping in chemoprevention of oral cancer.
- Breast Cancer: Research conducted by the University of Southern California and University of Texas showed that women who drank 3/4 cups of tea daily were less prone to breast cancer by 50 percent than women who did not drink green tea. Further, it has been observed that the incidence of breast cancer in women in Asia, where green tea is a common beverage, is less than in women in US, where green tea is relatively less common.
- Stomach Cancer: Green tea is good for stomach cancer as well. A study conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles showed that the likelihood of stomach cancer and chronic gastritis decrease by 48% and 51% respectively among people who drank green tea regularly than those who did not drink green tea.
- Lung Cancer: Another indicative animal research carried out at the School of Food and Nutritional Sciences, University of Shizuoka, Japan, has shown that green tea can be beneficial for lung cancer. Recently a study was conducted at the Center for Human Nutrition, University of California at Los Angeles, in which human lung cancer cells were marinated by green tea extract. The lung cancer cells sticked together as the green tea extract modified a protein.
- Colon Cancer: A research published in 1996 in the International Journal of Cancer gave indications that green tea intake helped in reducing colorectal cancer.
- Pancreatic Cancer: The same research also showed that green tea helped in reducing the incidence of pancreatic cancer as well.
- Cholesterol Levels: Green tea helps in maintaining cholesterol levels. While HDL (good cholesterol) is increased, LDL (bad cholesterol) is reduced by the beverage.
- Heart Problems: It is believed that green tea helps in preventing coronary artery disease and other cardiovascular problems, though there is no strong scientific evidence to prove this. The incidence of formation of blood clots is also reduced by green tea resulting in reduced probability of heart strokes.
- Parkinson's Disease: Initial research conducted at the State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Hong Kong has revealed that green tea might be useful in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. This is just an indicative research carried out on rats and a firm conclusion cannot be based on this research.
- Aging: Green tea is also good for skin care and hence used as an anti-aging agent. Creams, deodorants, moisturizers and lotions containing green tea are now available in the market.
Please note that most of the benefits mentioned above are based on indicative research. In some cases, the exact mechanism of the activity is not clear, while in some cases clinical trials have not been conducted.
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