Green tea
In recent years Green tea has become more popular in the west where traditional tea consumption used to be more geared towards black tea. While many of us only heard about green tea a few years ago and with the increased popularity so comes the need to research the potential benefits of green tea in both medical as general health, this kind of tea has long been used in china and other Asian countries, Green tea originated from china over 4000 years ago.
Green tea is essentially tea like black tea with the difference that it has only undergone minimal oxidation unlike the traditional western black tea and not to be confused by Oolong tea either, oolong tea is somewhere in between green and black in terms of oxidation ranging from 10% to 75% oxidation.
The benefits of green tea
Green tea has a great many benefits according to recent research and more is found very frequently. But here are a few interesting things to know about green tea.
Green tea contains:
Catechins :
A category of polyphenols, present in significant quantities in green tea, especially EC, EGC and EGCG.
EGCG makes about 10-50% of the total catechin content of green tea and seems to be the most powerful catechins, up to 100times as powerful as vitamin C and E.
Flavenoids
Plant pigments found in most fresh fruits and vegetables, they aid in protecting against infections, if you have a deficiency in this it can result in a tendency to bruise very easy.
Theanine
Theanine is an amino acid that will produce a tranquilizing effect in the brain, it’s a very unique amino acid found in leaves sencha. This will give you a good feeling when consuming green tea frequently.
Thannins
This is a group of complex and simple polyphenols, flavonoids and phenols, all of these are relative resistant to digestion and act as astringents, shrinking tissues and contracting structural proteins in the skin. This can help digestion if you have a cup of green tea after a meal.
All teas come from the same source, no matter if its black tea, green tea, white tea or oolong tea, it is all essentially the same plant just a different way or preparing that will determine the color and content of these leafs.
Green tea is the most beneficial due to the lack of fermentation which destroys most of the beneficial content of tea in the process. There is a huge difference between green and black because of this. The effect on things like cholesterol showing it has its place in a low cholesterol diet and other benefits of green tea will not nearly be as present in the others.
While no magic bullet in terms of any of the health benefits it does have a significant long-term effect on both health and cholesterol levels and here is a study that shows the effect of green tea on High cholesterol and LDL cholesterol. here is the link.
Modulation of Cholesterol Metabolism by the Green Tea Polyphenol
The study is aimed to find out more on how green tea is associated with lower plasma cholesterol levels. They aimed to find out more on how green tea modulates cholesterol metabolism.
EGCG was found to be the only catechin to increase the LDL cholesterol receptor which had as a direct result lowering the cellular cholesterol concentration and significantly reducing the cholesterol synthesis, which explains the reduction in cellular cholesterol
The conclusion of the study shows that EGCG might be its active constituent.
Green tea side effects include possible insomnia due to the fact that green tea contains some amounts of caffeine, while less than coffee it still adds up and should be avoided just before bed time
.jpg)
