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Monday, June 15, 2009

The Benefits of Tea

I'm not a coffee drinker, coffee gives me palpitation. But I love to drink tea. My favorites are Japanese green tea and English black tea. I consume up to three cups a day. Green tea calms my nerve and my stomach when its grumbling. I'm married to a Brit and his family are big tea drinkers. I guess that's one reason why they live long. Would you believe that my father-in-law who is turning 85 years old drinks tea like water? And his mother died 5 years ago at the age of 101 years old.

It's believed that one reason the Japanese have lower rates of many diseases (including cancer) is that they drink so much green tea, a major storehouse of immunity-boosting compounds, including potent antioxidants like EGCG. Some research suggests that green tea is helpful for fending off the bugs that cause flue and diarrhea, whooping cough, pneumoniam, and even cavities. Even black tea appears to have immunity-enhancing properties. A small study at Harvard Medical School that examined immune function in coffee drinkers compared to tea drinkers found that when blood taken from all the study participants was exposed to E. coli bacteria, the tea drinkers' immune cells responded about 5x faster than the coffee drinkers'. Researchers believe it's the compound L-theanine in black tea that helps to rally immune function.

HELPFUL HINT:
Aim for one to two cups daily for general health.
If you are sick, try to drink three to four cups
.

(Source - Reader's Digest Food Cures)

1 comment:

  1. Tea is a wonderful beverage: So many different varieties, so just about everyone can find one that they like! Thanks for spreading the word.

    ReplyDelete