Green Tea and Your Health

Green tea has been used as for medical remedies in China since ancient times. It was said to have many health benefits and be a remedy for many ailments. It is also said that the Japanese owe their slim figures to green tea.
Today, scientist in Asia and the west are providing scientific evidence that green tea is the main cause of this.
Green tea has been shown to do many things including:
- Inhibit the growth of new cancer cells and kill existing cancer cells
- Promote weight loss helping the body burn up to 10 percent more body fat.
- Increase energy expenditure up to 4 percent.
- Prevent the oxidation of LDL cholesterol.
- Reduce the risk of colon, breast, and lung cancer.
- Boost the immune system.
- Have an anti-inflammatory effect making it a good supplement for those with arthritis.
- Help in the prevention of tooth decay.
Green Tea Differs from Other Types of Tea
By doing this the leaves remain green and active substances that are contained in the leaves keep their healthful qualities. Made from the plant so that oxidation of the leaves is prevented. What makes green tea different from other tea is the process in which it is made.
Side Effects of Green Tea
Thus making green tea one of the best supplements available. There are no reported harmful side effects in drinking green tea or taking green tea extract capsules.
Use of Green Tea
There are 2 ways of supplementing your diet with green tea:
- Drinking green tea: 2 to 3 cups daily.
- Green tea capsules or tablets: 2 capsules or tablets of green tea extract daily.

Unique Wedding Favors Series: Personalized Tea Favors and Sweet Honey

The perfect wedding favor will engage as many senses as possible while recreating the sweet memories and emotions of your wedding for your guests. Wedding tea favors and sweet honey delights, personalized with your name and unique message, are an ideal wedding favor choice. Gifts rich with sensory joys like beautifully packaged teas are the latest trend in favor gift giving as they evoke a feeling of warmth and comfort symbolic to your marriage itself.
Tea favors bring depth and culture to your choice of wedding favor. Tea has been enjoyed by mankind since 3,000 BC and is rich with tradition and meaning. The distinctive wedding tea favor is a robust blend of black tea, created from the leaves of the
Camellia sinensis
Many scientists and naturalists believe that teas promote a long healthy life, a symbolism of a wonderful marriage. , a beautiful white flowering plant known for its medicinal qualities.
In many cultures, sharing tea with guests, friends, and family is a sign of ultimate respect and gratitude. In China, guests sip sweet tea as a symbolic wish for a sweet marriage between the newlywed couple. Tea has been an important part of wedding traditions all over the world for centuries.
Wedding tea favors are becoming a popular wedding favor choice and can be customized with gorgeous prints, lettering, and packaging to match the theme of your wedding. Try packaging the glossy white foil packs with aromatic cinnamon sticks and an elegant tea cup, bound with flowing ribbons. For an even richer gift surprise, add a matching personalized honey favor jar to further enhance the sweet warmth of the wedding tea favors.
The most wonderful way to reward the friends and family that made your day special is to send them home with invigorating tea favors and an opportunity to enjoy a moment of warm comfort. Sensory rich wedding favors have a way of bringing the romance and splendor of your wedding back to your guests long after your last dance.
Tea favors and hearty sweet honey jars are perfect items on which to print your name and your sweetheart's names and the date of your wedding. The shiny packaging of the tea favor and the charm of the honey jar are fit for display and invite your guests to relive the memory of your union with each glance.
The hopes, dreams, and romance that create a perfect wedding are emotions that are difficult to capture with objects in the physical world. Warm, invigorating tea favors sipped from a delicate cup and sweetened with rich honey offer a way to recreate the magical moments of peace and joy that form a beautiful wedding.
Author is a small business internet marketing consultant and the cofounder of nGenuity Solutions.

Green Tea and Making Babies

While green tea has been studied for its numerous health
benefits, there's at least one area of interest that needs
more attention.
Can drinking green tea really enhance fertility?
Now that's the one-hundred-thousand dollar question! There's
a lot of conflicting opinions and research results
pertaining to that subject. We'll try to be fair and present
both sides of the issue.
Any tea made from the Camellia sinensis bush contains
caffeine. On the bright side of the teapot, green tea has
only one-sixth to one-tenth of the amount of caffeine that a
similar amount of regular coffee contains.
For those of us who are trying to watch our caffeine intake,
that's a good deal. If you need a caffeine fix though, green
tea isn't going to give you what you're looking for. Better
start looking for the nearest Starbucks.
How can drinking green tea increase fertility?
Some credit was given to the possibility that the polyphenols and hypoxanthine, compounds found in tea, resulted in a greater number of viable embryos, and increased maturation and fertilizability of oocytes. Because this wasn't the case for the other tested caffeinated beverages, caffeine wasn't deemed the causing agent. A study done by the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Oakland, California revealed that the chances of conceiving doubled for woman who daily drank more than one- half cup of green tea containing caffeine (American Journal of Public Health, 1998).
Another conclusion of this study was that the healthy lifestyle of many green tea drinkers, such as regular exercise and decreased smoking and fat intake, might also play a role in the enhanced fertility levels of the test subjects.
How can drinking green tea decrease fertility?
Tannic acids, an element found in green tea, have been shown
to cause fertility problems and greater chances at
miscarrying.
While not an "initial" fertility situation, rumor has it
that EGCG, the main disease-fighting antioxidant known as
catechins in green tea that have been found to impede the
growth of tumors, might also effect the blood vessel growth
of a developing embryo.
Another post-fertility issue related to an excessive intake
of green tea involves the increased rate of birth defects.
Past studies have concluded that coffee consumption
increases the risk of miscarriages and that caffeine intake
enhances the negative effects of alcohol intake on
fertility. While not directly related to green tea, caffeine
is the potential cause of such problems.
Should I or shouldn't I drink green tea for fertility
issues?
Cheers... Whatever you decide, we wish you the best of luck in your quest for that new addition to your family. Then and only then can you make a truly educated and well-informed decision about a very delicate issue. Do your homework.

Check with your doctor first. The best advice that we can give you is something you've heard before.
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Copyright: 2005 Vaughn Balchunas
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Vaughn Balchunas is a writer and publisher of health, and self-growth articles.
For more information about tea and health go to:

http://www.tea-guide.com

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The Benefits of Green Tea for Cancer and Leukemia

Green tea has long had many health benefits associated with it and its curative properties have been used in Chinese medicine for thousands of years.
EGCG is considered to be the most active component in green tea and is the best researched of all the green tea polyphenols. Tea polyphenols are classified as catechins and green tea contains six primary catechin compounds: catechin, gallaogatechin, epicatechin, epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate, and epigallocatechin gallate (also known as EGCG). The more the leaves are fermented, the lower the polyphenol content and the higher the caffeine content. Green tea is made from unfermented leaves and is reputed to contain the highest concentration of polyphenols, chemicals that act as powerful antioxidants.

Green tea, black tea and oolong tea are all made with the leaves of the Camellia sinensis bush.
Several studies have suggested that green tea and green tea extract have cancer-fighting abilities, possibly because the tea's concentration of antioxidants such as EGCG help minimize the cell damage that can lead to cancer.
EGCG (the key antioxidant in green tea) has been shown to kill cancer cells taken from leukaemia patients and put in a test tube. A recent study conducted at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota has demonstrated the benefits of green tea in adult sufferers of leukemia.
The fourth patient who did not show an improvement in her cancer overall, still exhibited an increase in her white blood cell count. In the months after they started drinking green tea or taking green tea extracts, three of them showed measurable improvements in their condition. All four patients had CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia). All four patients had started using green tea on their own last year, after hearing media reports about its health benefits.

All four patients had started using green tea on their own last year, after hearing media reports about its health benefits. Doctors at the clinic reported that four patients had started using green tea on their own last year, after hearing media reports about its health benefits.
However, over the next year the patient's lymph nodes steadily reduced in size. Swelling of the lymph nodes is one of the characteristic symptoms of CLL. In one case, a patient had been showing progressive swelling in her lymph nodes before she starting taking green tea capsules twice a day.
However, the benefit of EGCG over methotrexate is that it has far fewer side effects. Both work by blocking the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase, which is essential to the growth of tumour cells. Researchers have found that EGCG, the anti-cancer compound in green tea, works in a similar way to the anti-cancer drug methotrexate. Other research has come up with an explanation for why regular green tea drinkers have a low incidence of gastric and oesophageal cancers.
Women seeking to conceive or who are already pregnant are advised to consult their medical practitioner about the risks associated with drinking green tea. However, in a study conducted at Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program of Northern California in Oakland, researchers found that women who drank more than one half cup of caffeinated green tea every day doubled their odds of conceiving. This side effect could explain the increased risk of birth defects such as spina bifida.

The same study also showed that blocking the dihydrofolate reductase enzyme lowers folic acid levels.

Chinese Green Tea

For most people, the Chinese green tea is a stuff of legends. It has been known to be very beneficial to human health and has been talked about and written about because of its countless positive effects for thousands of years.
800, Chinese tea was brought to Japan by monks who studied Buddhism in China. It is believed that in A.D. The fame of the green tea did not stay at one place for long. Green tea leaves when boiled smelled and tasted so wonderful that Shen Nung even urged his people to drink it.

It was said that while boiling some water for drinking, some leaves fell into his pot from a tree nearby. According to legend, the first person to ever taste Chinese green tea was the Emperor Shen Nung in 2737 B.C.
What makes this green tea different from all other teas?
Chinese tea is produced from Camellia sinensis, the same plant where the oolong and black tea are derived. Yet, even though they all come from the same herb, the Chinese green drinnk truly stands out as an exceptional health drink. So what makes it different?
The difference lies in the method by which this tea is produced. Oolong and black tea leaves are traditionally oxidized and then dried while the Chinese green tea leaves are steamed and then dried. This method of producing green tea actually preserves most of the beneficial antioxidants present in it.
Chinese Green Tea for Health
While it is already common knowledge that green tea has several health benefits, modern scientists were able to provide several concrete proofs of the positive effects of Chinese tea. Its antioxidants are said to be the ones responsible for making the tea very beneficial.
It was also discovered that this healthy tea can have an anti-inflammatory effects and may provide protection against cardiovascular diseases. Recent findings show that the antioxidants in Chinese tea can reduce cholesterol levels in a person; can improve how blood vessels function; and can reduce blood lipids.
Chinese Green Tea for Weight Loss
In their study, they investigated the weight loss benefits of Chinese dieting by observing the interaction between the caffeine in green tea and a compound called epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). According to the researchers of the University of Geneva, green tea has thermogenic properties which aid much in weight loss. Significant findings were made that pointed to the benefits of such a tea in weight loss.
The tendency of Chinese green tea to enhance metabolic rates has given people reason to believe that this tea has weight loss benefits as well. When these two substances in the tea react, thermogenesis of the body increases by four percent.
Drinking Chinese tea allows the body to burn an additional 70 calories a day, a feat that weight loss enthusiasts would relish. The results of the research showed that green tea drinkers have a better propensity for weight loss. Another study concerning the weight loss benefits of Chinese dieting system was also conducted.
Today, Chinese green tea is widely available as a beverage and as an ingredient for weight loss products.
Cathy Freeman is a green tea lover and you can join her at her website
http://www.green-tea-time.blogspot.com/
to discuss
Chinese Green Tea
and other ideas about this healthy beverage.

Green Tea A Healthy Alternative To Soda

One of the most refreshing ways to cool off on a hot summer day is drinking a tall glass of iced tea and what better than making it green tea? However sodas do not really quench your thirst and there are some other healthier more refreshing alternatives. In the hot days of summer it is easy to reach for a soda to help you cool off.
Japan is especially famous for this. In fact so important is this drink in these countries that there is special tea drinking rituals associated with this beverage. People From the Orient have long known the benefits of drinking green tea.
Green tea has also been found to have vitamin C and fluoride. It is higher in antitoxins than the traditional black tea drunk in the West. Recent research is revealing that this tea is particularly beneficial for your health.

Now Australia is trying to cultivate it so that green tea can be available in other months and supply the increasing need for this beverage. The best green tea is grown in Japan and is harvested in the spring months. Green tea: Is made from the leaves of the Camellia Sinensis tree.
Green tea has more of these properties than the traditional black teas because of the way it is processed It goes through little or no processing (fermenting or oxidizing) this brings out the antioxidants and vitamins but will reduce the stimulant quality (caffeine) of this tea.
Fast cooling will not allow the full taste to come out; so slow cooling at room temperature is best. You can just pour the hot water on it and let it cool slowly. When making iced tea it is good to steep the tea for about 20-30 minutes.

These are easily available in many grocery stores and most health food stores. The best way to make green tea hot or cold is to make it with loose leaves.
You can also make some good tea pops. Just fill an ice cube tray with green tea (cooled) and put toothpicks in each square and enjoy when fully frozen. You can also make regular cubes of green tea to add to beverages.
You can also add ginger as a real thirst quencher for those hot days. Citrus peels are especially refreshing with iced green tea. Anise and chicory are also added for a change in taste.

If you want to spice up your tea you can add citrus peel as it steeps.
However you chose to drink your green tea it is a nice refreshing change from soda and good for your health. It will not only quench your thirst but rejuvenate you too. As our world grows smaller we are becoming more aware of different types of foods and beverages. As more research is being done on this increasingly popular drink we will see even more benefits to our health. It is recommended to drink at least 3 cups or more per day to enjoy the health giving properties of green tea.