Green tea has grown in popularity among those who opt to brew a quick bag and for connoisseurs who enjoy whisking fine matcha. Its diversity and marketability make it a delicious drink and an alternative to coffee, but there are wonderful health benefits of drinking green tea every day.
1. Ease Rheumatoid Arthritis
Green tea is chockful of antioxidants; specifically, polyphenols. Polyphenols are a type of organic compound that you can find in various plants. So you can find them in not only green tea leaves, but also grape seeds, grape skin, maritime pine bark, and olive pulp.
Antioxidants are beneficial to your health because they get rid of free radicals that can damage your body’s cells.
In the case of rheumatoid arthritis, polyphenols seem to have an anti-inflammatory effect. They’re able to inhibit pro-inflammatory mediators. As a result, you may feel your symptoms from rheumatoid arthritis decrease if you drink green tea daily.
2. Reduce Your Risk of Esophageal Cancer
Considering green tea has a high amount of polyphenols, it’s highly beneficial in preventing esophageal cancer.
Green tea’s polyphenols are though to be able to suppress uncontrolled cell growth as a result of this cancer. But not only that, they can facilitate apoptosis as well. This is the process of cell death.
If the tea is too hot when you drink it, you may damage the cells in your esophagus.
3. Boost Weight Loss Results
You may already know that caffeine can help with weight loss. Because caffeine can boost your metabolism, it can help you burn more calories. As a result, you’ll see quicker and better weight loss results.
Like with coffee, green tea has caffeine, so you’ll get the metabolism-boosting benefits. But in addition to caffeine, it also has catechin.
Catechin is a type of antioxidant that also speeds up your metabolism, as well as break down excess fat in your body.
While the amounts of caffeine and catechin aren’t enough for you to drop 10 pounds in a few days, they still can help move things along if you’re struggling with dropping some pounds.
4. Lower LDL Cholesterol
The body produces two types of cholesterol: low-density (LDL) and high-density (HDL). You may know them respectively as “bad” and “good” cholesterol.
If you have high levels of the “bad” cholesterol (LDL), this means you have a higher amount of buildup in your arteries than people normally do. The arteries have to stay clear to pump bloody through smoothly, so you can imagine what damage a clog can do.
Drinking green tea daily, can help push your LDL cholesterol numbers down. As a result, you’ll be less prone to heart disease, since your arteries won’t have big buildup in them.
6. Lower Risk of Stroke
Remember catechins? Not only does it speed up your metabolism and break down excess fat, but it also helps regular your blood pressure. In turn, this helps improve your blood flow.
All those benefits, combined with green tea’s anti-inflammatory effects, seem to work together to significantly lower your risk of having a stroke.
Studies show that people who drank over three cups of green (or black) tea a day had a 21% lower risk than people who drank less than one cup a day.
Obviously, to lower your chances of stroke as much as possible, you should also eat healthy and exercise regularly.
7. Lower Risk of Diabetes
Seeing as green tea can help with weight loss and management, it makes sense that it’d help you lower your risk of diabetes as well. Obesity and diabetes often come hand-in-hand; if you get rid of excess weight, then you get rid of the risk of diabetes too.
In Japan, it’s been found that people who drank more than six cups of green tea a week had a 33% lower risk than people who drank less than one cup a day. And in Taiwan, people who regularly drank green (or black) tea for over a decade had less fat and smaller waists.
8. Reduce Stress
If you feel more relaxed and calm after sipping a cup of green tea, it’s not just your imagination. Green tea really can help lower the amount of stress you feel.
Green tea has theanine, which is an amino acid that has anti-stress effects. However, normal green tea has caffeine and catechins, which blocks the beneficial effects of theanine.
To get the full benefits of stress reduction, you should try and purchase green teas that are low-caffeine. Of course, if your main aim is for the other benefits in this list, then you should purchase products that have normal levels of caffeine and catechins in them.
Drinking Green Tea Every Day Is Highly Beneficial
As you can see, drinking green tea every day has a myriad of health benefits. Not only does it taste delicious, but it can also fend off serious ailments that can affect your quality of life.
So take five minutes out of your day to brew a cup of green tea, and sip it while taking a breather. I promise you’ll feel a world of difference once you pick up this habit.
See also the health benefits of drinking lemon water in the morning and health benefits of cucumber water.
Katie Dillon is the managing editor of La Jolla Mom. She helps readers plan San Diego vacations through her hotel expertise (that stems from living in a Four Seasons hotel) and local connections. Readers have access to exclusive discounts on theme park tickets (like Disneyland and San Diego Zoo) and perks at luxury hotels worldwide through her. She also shares insider tips for visiting major cities worldwide, like Hong Kong, London, Paris, and Shanghai, that her family has either lived in or visits regularly (or both).
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