Green tea, the Miracle Cure?

Updated 9.18.2014; reformatted and updated on 9.17.2015
I may be one of the last people on the planet to realize the extent of the benefits of green tea. I knew green tea was healthy to drink, but had never investigated its specific affects on various ailments.

Recent health developments here at the arena provided the impetus for me to look into the health effects of green tea.

Bottom line: Drink Green Tea!

There seems to be little limit to the verified health claims for green tea, and no limit to the unverified ones. There's very little new to be revealed here, there are plenty of websites extolling the amazing healing properties of green tea. However, what follows is what I learned in a day's research and reading. While there are many different aspects to how green tea acts in the body, the primary impact is due to its anti-oxidant action.

Triglycerides and Cholesterol

Unfortunately, elevated levels of triglycerides (trigs) are recently a concern for us. Thus I have been reading and learning about trigs and looking for ways to lower them using foods, and drinking green tea is one way to do so. Green tea will also lower LDL levels and raise HDL, but raising HDL is a different issue for me. This topic I intend to cover fully in a different essay, but wanted to note that green tea has heart healthy effects.

Mitigates Effects of Alcohol

Beyond the potential cardiovascular benefits, this is the effect that intrigues the most. We enjoy a nice adult beverage (or two) with dinner most nights in these parts, but most unfortunately, alcohol raises triglyceride levels.

The studies of looking at the relationship between green tea and the effects of alcohol were led by Skrzydlewska. He reported a beneficial effect for green tea in alcohol intoxication. The work is only done with rats, because you can't get human subjects drunk for weeks at a time while you do your research.

Green tea protects against peroxidation in the liver, blood serum and central nervous system. Peroxidation means the oxidative degrading of lipids or fats. Oxidized fats can cause cell damage.

Green tea lowers the risk for a variety of cancers.

Drinking green tea daily reduces the risk for breast, ovarian, prostate, gastro-intestinal and lung cancer, per the 2006 review linked above. the amount of tea required for the effect varied with study, but typically it's between three to five cups, though some studies say up to ten. Dr. Michael Gregor suggests that five cups a day is the number to drink for the optimal effect.

Green tea lowers blood pressure.

The review suggests the effect is weaker than most websites would have you believe. Tea provides the same amount of hydration as water too, without any additional calories. Tea has less caffeine than coffee, which is important for people who are sensitive to caffeine or who have sleep issues.

Green tea improves oral health.

The linked review notes that studies have shown that drinking green tea regular reduces the number of cavities or "caries." this effect is ascribed both to the anti-oxidants in the tea as well as its natural flouride content.

My new routine: 5-6 cups a day

So based on this research (and the research on heart health markers, which I intend to write up separately) I have begun to drink green tea through the day. I used to start my day with one cup of coffee, then switched to water through the day, and then had a bit of adult beverage in the evening. I've replaced the plain water with green tea, deciding the Dr Gregor's comment that it's "all the water plus nutrients" makes sense. I do steep the leaves a few times rather than starting with fresh each time. The reason is that each subsequent steeping yields less caffeine in the cup.

September 2015 Update, 2 cups per day

Further research indicated that excessive amounts of green tea (such as 5-6 large mugs worth) can slow the thyroid's function. Since a slow thyroid is not something I want to induce, I cut back to 2 cups a day. So now in the mornings I have a mug of black coffee then two mugs of tea made from steeping the same leaves. And I've gone back to drinking plain water during the day.

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