You will undoubtedly have read somewhere that green tea is so good for your health. Nowadays, there even are tea products like Tea Burn that was proven effective in promoting weight loss. But among other things, it would ultimately have positive effects on our brain and heart, but also weight loss and our blood sugar levels and it would protect us against cancer. But what has been proven by science?
1. Protects against cancer
Let’s perhaps start with that protect against cancer. Green tea is packed with antioxidants, substances that can lower the risk of some cancers. Antioxidants help reduce oxidative damage in the cells. Oxidation is a process that can be compared to rust on iron, or a brown spot on an apple or a pear that remains in the open air for a while. If oxidation occurs with us, we age. On the outside, you can see that, for example, wrinkles or pigmentation spots, but also on the inside, there are consequences of that aging. Harmful substances, free radicals, and small aggressive particles are created that can cause damage and, among other things, chronic inflammation, but also cancers. Fortunately, you can prevent oxidation with antioxidants, as the name says. A healthy body makes enough of it, which is why it is important to keep your body as healthy as possible and to live as healthy as possible. Research has also shown that green tea can indeed make a difference in the prevention of several cancers.
- A comprehensive study showed that women who drank the greenest tea had about a 20 to 30 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer.
- One study found that men who drank green tea had a lower risk of advanced prostate cancer.
- A summary of 29 studies showed that people who drank green tea were about 42 percent less likely to get colon cancer.
2. Good for the brain
Green tea contains a lot of caffeine, a substance that makes you alert, but also stimulates your brain function. It blocks adenosine, the substance that makes us sleepy, and stimulates stimulants such as dopamine and norepinephrine. In addition to caffeine, green tea also contains L-theanine, a substance that calms and reduces stress and anxiety without making you tired. People who drink green tea indicate that the boost they get from green tea is less ‘aggressive’ than that of coffee: their energy is more stable and they are more productive compared to coffee. Studies have also shown that green tea not only improves your brain function in the short term but your brain would also be protected as you age thanks to L-theanine and caffeine. In particular, it would protect against Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
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3. Lower risk of type 2 diabetes
Research also showed that green tea can improve insulin sensitivity and reduce your blood sugar levels. Tea drinkers would be 18 percent less likely to have type 2 diabetes. In addition to a positive effect on how your body deals with sugar, green tea also has a stimulating effect on your fat burning and your metabolism. You have to see this effect in the short term, but not all studies agree on this. Thus, green tea could also help with weight loss and loss of body fat, especially around the abdominal zone.
4. Good for your heart
Thus, the high amounts of antioxidants in green tea help prevent oxidation, which also means that they reduce bad LDL cholesterol. And cholesterol, as you know, has a direct effect on cardiovascular disease, which makes green tea drinkers up to 31 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease. This means that green tea drinkers live longer. A study of 40,530 adult Japanese over 11 years showed that the people who drank more than 5 cups of green tea a day were significantly less likely to die from a heart attack (42 percent less in the women, 35 percent less in the men), from heart disease (31 percent less in the women, 22 percent less in the men) and any cause (23 percent in the women, 12 percent less among men).