Green tea has been used for general enjoyment and health promotion in China for centuries. It’s an important component of traditional Chinese medicine, and many tea-lovers swear green tea can improve your health, lower your risk of cancer and prevent obesity. Can green tea really do everything its fans claim?
Teas can be split into two general categories: Those made from Camellia sinensis and teas made from other plants. Green, black, white and oolong teas are made from the leaves of Camella sinensis. Other teas, like chamomile, peppermint and rooibos, come from different plants.
So what makes green tea different from other Camellia sinensis teas? The unique flavor, aroma and health benefits of green tea are created during the post-harvest process. Once tea leaves are plucked from the plant, they begin to oxidize. Enzymes within the tea leaf interact with oxygen in the air and start breaking down certain chemicals within the tea leaf. Oxidation is a natural process with many plants — you’ve seen it before with a cut apple turning brown after exposure to air. The process can only be stopped by heating the tea leaves. Green tea leaves are heated almost immediately after picking so they’ll retain their natural green color and helpful enzymes.
The exact method used to heat the tea leaves depends on the region. Japanese teas are often steamed, while Chinese teas are pan-fried in a wok. The leaves can also be dried in the sun or in an oven. As long as the oxidation is stopped quickly, it doesn’t matter which method is used.
If you’ve tried green tea before and haven’t been a fan, give it another go. With so many different ways to grow, harvest and treat tea, you can enjoy a wide variety of tastes. Most green teas have similar health effects, too, so choose based on taste, not manufacturer claims.
1. Improves Overall Health
Many people insist that drinking tea can improve your overall health. You might have heard that tea can prevent cancer, reduce your risk of heart attack and help you lose weight. In general, many of the claims made about tea aren’t supported by scientific evidence. That doesn’t mean you should stop drinking tea, though. There are a few areas where tea has proven health benefits, and no studies have found negative health outcomes from drinking green tea.
One big claim-to-fame for green tea its phytochemicals. This big word simply refers to chemicals produced by plants. For example, caffeine is a phytochemical, and so are pollens. Having phytochemicals doesn’t mean that a plant is healthy — it just means it’s a plant.
The most important phytochemicals in tea are polyphenols and flavonoids. You don’t need to know exactly what these terms mean unless you love studying organic chemistry. They’re simply different types of chemicals that plants produce. Sometimes, tea manufacturers will claim that their products are healthy because of the phytochemicals, polyphenols or flavonoids inside of them. There’s not a lot of evidence to support those claims.
[nextpage title=“Next” ]2. Improve Brain Function
One health benefit of green tea with good clinical evidence is the ability to improve brain health. A study in the European Journal of Epidemiology looked at data from 22 separate studies. Overall, the study found that drinking at least three cups per day of green tea could reduce your risk of cerebral infarction and intracerebral hemmorage. These are two different forms of bleeding in the brain that sometimes lead to stroke.
One study has found that tea can increase your memory. However, as CNN reports, this study only looked at 12 volunteers. It’s hard to draw evidence from such a small study.
[nextpage title=“Next” ]3. Promotes Weight Loss
Can drinking green, black or oolong tea help you lose weight? There isn’t much science to support this idea. A few studies discussed on Medical News Today have shown that high doses of caffeine or catechin (one of the flavonoids in tea) can promote small amounts of weight loss. However, you’d have to drink many cups of tea per day to reach that high of a level. Most of the studies that have looked at green tea itself, not the phytochemicals in it, haven’t found significant weight loss just from drinking tea. However, since tea has so few calories, you could make it part of an overall effort to consume fewer calories.
[nextpage title=“Next” ]4. Prevents Cancer
Some studies have found that drinking tea can protect you from cancer, but there’s a problem with most of these studies: They were conducted in Asia, and they weren’t randomized. This means scientists looked at people who drink a lot of tea and compared them with people who rarely drink tea. This kind of study can’t prove that tea lowers cancer risk. It just shows that people who live a generally healthy lifestyle and drink tea have less risk of cancer than unhealthy people.
[nextpage title=“Next” ]5. Prevents Alzheimer’s
According to Harvard University, there’s some evidence to show that drinking green tea lowers your risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s. A long-term study followed 957 senior citizens. Those who drank tea were 50% less likely to develop dementia within the five-year period. If you hate green tea, don’t worry. The study found you can drink black, green or oolong tea and get the same protection.
[nextpage title=“Next” ]6. Promotes Dental Health
Both green and black teas can prevent cavities and promote gum health in regular drinkers. Some of the chemicals in tea have been shown to break up oral bacteria. Most gum and tooth disease is caused by bacteria lingering in the mouth after eating or drinking food. These bugs eventually break down tooth enamel and corrode the gums. Tea can zap the bacteria before they’re able to get to work. Of course, if you add heaping spoonfuls of sugar to your tea, you can cancel out these health benefits.
[nextpage title=“Next” ]7. Heart Health
The same study that found that green tea can help your brain also found significant improvement in heart health. Tea can reduce your chances of coronary heart disease (CHD) and death from cardiac events by over 25%. However, most of these effects were found in observational studies. It’s difficult to know if green tea by itself can improve your heart health or if you also need to adapt other heart-healthy behaviors like decreasing saturated fats in your diet. Whatever you decide, it’s clear that drinking tea won’t hurt your heart.
[nextpage title=“Next” ]8. Obesity
You’ve already read that green tea can’t do much to help you lose weight, but can it prevent obesity in the first place? There are a few studies showing that countries with high levels of tea consumption, like China, Japan and India, have lower obesity rates than countries without a predominant tea culture, like the United States. However, these studies are so broad they can’t prove that tea lowers obesity levels. Other factors, like diet and exercise levels, probably have a much bigger effect than green tea consumption.
