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 headshot

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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15 Comments

  1. Pingback: Soak Tired Feet While Sipping Mt Fuji’s Finest Water at Numero Water Boutique, San Diego (Little Italy)
  2. Time for me to seek out a Japanese market with the bottled iced green tea! You did a great sales pitch!
    .-= Leah´s last blog ..Project 2,996 Tribute to Lisa B. Cannava =-.

  3. Pingback: Benefits of Green Tea | rheumatoid arthritis information
  4. I do enjoy a nice ice cold glass of Green Tea just about every day. I have only been exposed to the Japanese Green Tea at Costco.
    Wishing you a scent-sational day!
    Patty
    .-= Patty Reiser´s last blog ..A Day to Remember =-.

  5. Pingback: Alzheimers.FM » Blog Archiv » Posts about Alzheimers News in the Blogosphere: as of September 12, 2009
  6. If you really want to do the best for your health (of course with tea) then consider Pu-erh tea. It has more antioxidants than green tea and also has probiotics like yogurt or kefir. No other tea can boast all that. And it’s in fashion right now in Hong Kong.

  7. If you really want to do the best you can for your health (of course with tea), try Pu-erh tea. It has more antioxidants than green tea and also has probiotics like yogurt or kefir. No other tea can boast all that. And it’s in fashion in Hong Kong these days.

  8. I do enjoy a nice ice cold glass of Green Tea just about every day. I have only been exposed to the Japanese Green Tea at Costco.
    Wishing you a scent-sational day!
    Patty
    .-= Patty Reiser´s last blog ..A Day to Remember =-.
    BTW I love your blog!

  9. I love green tea and being so close to Asia green tea is everywhere here (in Western Australia) so I guess we are pretty lucky!
    .-= Amanda´s last blog ..My Inspiration – What’s The Matter Mary-Jane? =-.

  10. You’ve convinced me to drink more green tea!!
    .-= Lynn from For Love or Funny´s last blog ..I’ll pay you $10,000 to rake my driveway =-.

  11. I wonder how much of Hong Kong’s success could be measured in it’s green tea, rather than the soda habit so many American’s have? Would be interesting to measure if we could.

    This is a good article on why green tea is so beneficial. If articles like this help more people to drink healthy alternatives to the mostly poor quality of so called sports and energy drinks, then some good has been done.

    Speaking of green tea, and healthy alternatives, there is a drink that got introduced Sept 1st, 2009 that is in a category of it’s own- and yes, it does contain green tea among other things.

    Natural and yet with years of scientific research, it has amazing benefits and is especially suited for the mind and alertness. Since sugars are not present (it’s sweetened with natural Stevia), it can also help some with their weight.

    It has a bit of caffeine, mostly due to the green tea extract, but it’s the other ingredients that make the big difference as it turns out that the American diet under-consumes specific nutrients that are vital to the brain. Make a difference there, and it affects everything including mood.

    I was able to obtain some before it was officially launched, and drink it everyday with great benefit. (Mostly alertness, long lasting energy). I almost feel sorry for the general public that will never find out about a drink too good to be found in a grocery store isle.

    http://focusuponline.com

  12. I enjoy Hoji from Infusions of Tea in San Diego. You can purchase online
    Hoji tastes good hot or cold. Thanks for outlining green tea benefits. I plan to enjoy more often!

  13. My local Von’s Market stocks Japanese canned Ito En green tea in chilled area near the fresh veggies and imported asian foods.

    Love it!