The Benefits of Green Tea
A Natural Way to Fight the H1N1 Virus and MRSA During Flu Season
Green tea now rivals other beverages in popularity in America. Research has shown that drinking green tea can help prevent prostate cancer and improve cardiovascular health. Evidence has shown that probiotics boost our immunity, but new studies prove the same effect for green tea. Green tea extract has many antibacterial and antiviral effects that may help guard against some superbugs, like MRSA, and block the symptoms of the swine flu, or H1N1, virus.
A General History of Green Tea
Tea is typically consumed as a beverage produced from steeping the leaves of Camellia sinensis in hot water. The practice of drinking tea began about 5,000 years ago in China. Through the centuries, tea eventually found its way to Europe via trading, and then made it to the Americas in the last few hundred years.
There are three major types of tea which all come from the same plant, according to www.o-cha.com: green, oolong, and black. Green tea is steamed after it is picked to prevent oxidation, or fermentation, as it is called. Oolong tea is partially fermented, while black tea is fermented completely.
Because the green tea is less processed, it retains certain compounds that are typically lost in fermentation. These compounds, called catechins, account for the antioxidant properties inherent in tea. The most important catechin in green tea is EGCG, or Epigallocatechin gallate. This chemical is assumed to be responsible for the majority of health advantages ascribed to green tea.
Health Benefits of Green Tea
For centuries, black tea was the most commonly consumed tea in the Western world. Green tea, which had been mostly associated with Asia, has grown in popularity in America over the last decade. Green tea's flavor is quite different than the flavor of black tea. It has a more astringent, or grassy flavor, than black tea. Green tea's market surge has largely been based not on its taste, but on its many heath benefits.
ConsumerLab.com and numerous articles on PubMed confirm green tea can reduce some cancers, including prostate cancer, and it also thins the blood and lowers cholesterol and blood pressure, improving cardiovascular health. Green tea also reduces inflammation, regulates blood glucose levels, prevents tooth decay, and increases bone mineral density in people who drink it. There is also promising evidence that green tea can prevent HIV infection and bolster immunity against other infections and viruses, including MRSA and H1N1.
Green Tea Prevents MRSA
MRSA, or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, is a currently prevalent strain of staph that MayoClinic.com says is resistant to many broad-spectrum antibiotics. According to Dr. Andrew Weil, a recent study in Egypt showed that green tea boosted the efficacy of over 28 antibiotics when battling superbugs. What's more, the tea also made the resistant bacteria itself more susceptible to the action of cephalosporin antibiotics.
Another study conducted in Japan showed that MRSA is attenuated by green tea. The act of drinking the tea was theorized to have sterilized the bacteria in the throat. This research was published in 1999 in Medicine & Drug Journal.
Gargling Green Tea Prevents the Flu
Green tea's therapeutic value is such that you don't have to swallow it to experience its good effects. A 2005 report from The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine found that nursing home residents who simply gargled with green tea three times per day had an 87% less chance of getting the flu than their counterparts. Another study found the EGCG in green tea inhibited influenza A, including the H1N1 variant.
Drinking, or even gargling, green tea several times a day is an excellent way to improve your overall health. Using green tea can help you avoid getting sick from common, and sometimes deadly, infections and viruses, including swine flu and MRSA.
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