So This Is Christmas

Merry Christmas is such an infectious feeling I like to feel that way all year around.

So if you are visiting just before Christmas, just after Christmas or even here on Christmas day I am sure you will find something of interest for you and in the spirit of Christmas.

It may be said that Christmas is no longer a celebration but this must be spoken by people that have never had trouble closing their eyes on Christmas Eve in an expectation of what maybe left for them on the carpet under the tree.

I continue to look forward to the surprise on my Grandchild's faces to this day at Christmas events.

Merry Christmas - Merry Christmas - Merry Christmas

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Green Tea Is Why Chinese Are Healthier Than Americans

By Laura Heins

As an oasis is to the dessert, or a cool breeze to a hot summer night, so is green tea to cholesterol.

Millions of people suffer from high cholesterol due to years and years of having a bad diet. Green tea can reverse much of this damage and can actually lower cholesterol.

As modern science discovered cholesterol, apoB protein, LDLs, and triglycerides, green tea emerged as a surprising solution. As crazy as it sounds that a drink thousands of years old can help lower cholesterol, new scientific research suggests exactly that. The next 10 years will continue to reveal more facts about the world's oldest beverage: green tea.

If green tea was just good at lowering cholesterol, that would be reason enough to drink it. But green tea also has anti-cancer ingredients! Now before you doubt, you need to know the latest research done by credible universities and organizations. At the University of Purdue, researchers found that green tea actually inhibits the growth of cancer cells in the body! At the University of Kansas, researchers found the link between the low levels of heart disease in Japan even though more than half of the population are smokers! It turns out most Japanese drink green tea and that green tea has a chemical called EGCG in it. Researchers found that EGCG helps prevent cancer. But perhaps the most telling study of all was done by the National Cancer Institute. In a medical journal, they reported the results of a study on esophageal cancer in China. Their conclusion was that green tea reduced the risk of esophageal cancer in Chinese men and women by over fifty five percent!

Another research finding I am not very excited about is that green tea can lower high blood pressure. The study found that one would need to drink 5 to 10 cups of green tea a day for it to have an impact on blood pressure. That is just too much green tea to stomach each day even for the best habitual tea drinkers out there.

For more that 4,000 years the Chinese have known about the medicinal benefits of green tea since using it to treat everything from headaches to depression. So it is not just green tea and cholesterol or green tea and cancer; it is also green tea and depression!

There is ongoing research into whether green tea is helpful with cardiovascular disease, infection, arthritis, and more.

Researchers have found that catechin polyphenols, especially epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) is what lowers the risk of cancer. Polyphenols have also been found to limit the negative effects of a fatty diet and of smoking.

Green tea has also been shown to help with weight loss. In a study done by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, it was found that men who were given green tea burned more calories than those who were given only caffeine.

There are also studies being done on green tea and tooth decay. Green tea has bacteria killing compounds that help prevent tooth decay.

Now keep in mind that all teas are not created equal when it comes to health benefits. Green tea is what you want to drink to get the maximum health benefits. Even though all tea comes from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant, the difference is in how the tea leaves are prepared. Green tea leaves are steamed which keeps more of the EGCG compound. Black tea and Oolong tea are made from dried or fermented leaves which causes a loss of EGCG.

We should have learned to speak Mandarin or Fukien a long time ago and got to know green tea and cholesterol lowering the Chinese way.

There is new research coming out all the time about the health benefits of drinking green tea.

About the Author:

No comments:

If You Are Unable To Be There But Want To Show You Love Them Then Send -