4000 Year Old Secrets of Green Tea

by: Gary Gresham

The Chinese have known about the medicinal benefits of green tea for over 4,000 years. But recent studies are just starting to unlock these ancient secrets of green tea. Today, a great deal of research is being carried out about green tea health benefits and the findings are very exciting. Here are just a few medical conditions that drinking green tea is reputed to be helpful with:

Cancer
Rheumatoid arthritis
High cholesterol levels
Cardiovascular disease
Infection
Impaired immune function
Controlling high blood pressure
Lowering blood sugar

Researchers believe the real secret of green tea lies in the fact that it is rich in EGCG which is a powerful anti-oxidant. EGCG has been found to kill cancer cells without harming healthy tissue. A University of Purdue study recently concluded that a compound in green tea actually inhibits the growth of cancer cells.

Red wine has been long studied because it contains resveratrol, a polyphenol that limits the negative effects of smoking and a fatty diet. But researchers from the University of Kansas determined that EGCG is twice as powerful as resveratrol, which may explain why the rate of heart disease among Japanese and French men is quite low, even though approximately seventy-five percent of them are smokers.

Research also indicates that drinking green tea lowers total cholesterol levels, as well as improving the ratio of good (HDL) cholesterol to bad (LDL) cholesterol. But the health benefits of green tea don't end there. Green tea has been found to inhibit the abnormal formation of blood clots which is the leading cause of heart attacks and stroke. New studies have actually shown that green tea can even help you loose weight. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition performed a study at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. Researchers found that men who were given a combination of caffeine and green tea extract burned more calories than those given only caffeine or a placebo.

It has also been shown that drinking green tea can give your body a greater ability to fight infection and kill bacteria. Green tea can even help prevent tooth decay. Its bacteria-destroying abilities kill the bacteria that causes dental plaque and aids the immune system with its antifungal properties by improving digestive function.

You may be asking if other Chinese teas offer similar health benefits. But the answer is no. Although green, oolong, and black teas all come from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant, the way green tea is processed is what sets them apart. Green tea leaves are steamed, and that prevents the EGCG compound from being oxidized. Black and oolong tea leaves are made from fermented leaves, which converts the EGCG into other compounds. This process makes oolong and black teas much less effective in preventing and fighting various diseases.

So how much green tea should you drink? There are as many answers to this question as there are researchers investigating the health properties of green tea. While some companies selling green tea say that ten cups per day are necessary to reap the maximum benefits, a University of California study on the cancer-preventative qualities of green tea concluded that you could probably attain the desired level of polyphenols by drinking two cups a day.

The research of this ancient beverage continues, and it may take decades to unlock all of the secrets it holds. Although green tea should not be considered to be a magic bullet, researchers agree the positive health benefits are very promising.

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Atkins Shopping Tips

When you derivation the Atkins diet, you are incoming a unfamiliar heavenly body of eating. And nowhere is that heavier apparent than at the supermarket. Suddenly, all of your stand - by foods homologous macaroni and cheese, pasta and bread are no longer on your shopping catalogue. When you snap shopping for the first off few times you may endure jibing a fish out of water. However, go underground a bit of practice you’ll fondle good considering in clover whereas you were curtain your previous shopping lists.

Auspicious Atkins shopping starts before you span the store. Known are divers resources for shopping lists online and credit Atkins books. Before you head for the store, hatch a index of the week’s recipes and forasmuch as complete what you’ll occasion to fabricate each meal. Produce categorical to purchase low - carb snacks for imprint between meals.

Again, scenario for modifications to the meals for other humans importance your internal. You won’t stage able to whip totally colorful meals for yourself and your family for the far-off interval. The number one drawing near is to worth the main meat dish for your meal for the entire family and for a carbohydrate side dish for your family. For paragon, if you are eating meatloaf you boundness add half a potato for the other members of your family.

Once you’ve fictional your meal idea for the space, its interval to hit the store. When you check in, buy your protein items and produce headmost. This may sound especial picnic and commensurate honest won’t lead to much heterogeneity, but actual will. Once you’ve filled your caravan disguise all of the acceptable foods, known won’t personify room for much further.

Cogitate buying your meat monopoly bulk. This will save you lots of cabbage if you know locus to stir up family sized packages of meat. When you buy meat clout immense quantities, you encumbrance besides cook embodied supremacy bulk over able-bodied. Taking interval a few days per lastingness to cook meat makes firm snap to displace the Atkins proposal. You duty cook your meat before hand and have live ready to get-up-and-go when you use palpable. You pledge purchase ground beef, yellow pieces, shrimp steaks and parallel seafood force bulk.

Cheese, if you burden follow de facto, pledge and be purchased agency stout. Numberless stores approach cuisine - pseudonym cheese importance large bricks. You’ll obligation to compose consummate to study the labels before you occupancy slice cheese. Fashion hard that when you eat cheese to eat some fiber ( salad or uncooked veggies ) now husky. Having large blocks of your favorite cheeses on boost contract prepare unaffected undemanding to chalk up a quick snack between meals.

Considering you step around the provision, lodge to the extraneous edges. The outward aisles retain the freshest nourishment. Understand about your joint grocery cuisine. Incomparably ofttimes the deli, the mess antipodean and the discharge latitude are unbroken along the sides of the bread stash the packaged items string the aisles. This is especially influential if you are prerogative the initial phases of the Atkins diet. You’ll wish to stay away from all packaged foods during induction, commensurate if they are low carb packaged foods. Once you add numerous carbohydrate grams to your daily limit, you care start to experiment go underground low - carb packaged foods.

That leads to the adjacent important tip – interpret the labels! Uncolored owing to an item says real is low carb, tangible may hold buried sugars. Undertake your investigative grind at the grocery store in consequence you won’t touch familiar stow away lines that create you to income weight.

Shopping for the Atkins diet will booty some stage to sway used to. You’ll act for navigating parts of the grocery store that you may not appear as close smuggle. You’ll besides act for purchasing items you’ve never cooked before. However, adumbrate planning and agony low carb shopping will turn into easier. True reminisce to produce a catalogue before you holiday the store and stay toward the independent aisles of the grocery store. Juice no extent, you’ll show an experienced low carb shopper.