Green Tea – A Brief Overview
When it comes to maintaining good health and a clean body, nothing comes near as close to that goal as tea does. There are many kinds of tea, each with its own unique advantages and disadvantages. One of the most popular ones is the green tea, which has recently started to receive even more recognition for its usefulness. There’s a solid reason behind that popularity – green tea is a major source of many healthy substances, and adding it to your diet is one of the best ways to freshen up your life.
Fighting Cancer
One of the most important qualities of green tea lies in its properties as an antioxidant. The tea contains epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), which is known to be the strongest antioxidant in existence – it’s about a hundred times as effective for the purpose as Vitamin C! Antioxidants have many benefits which make them an invaluable part of your diet, the main one being that they combat cell damage, which is one of the causes for cancer – which means that regularly drinking green tea is a great preventive measure against cancer.
Of all the kinds of tea that exist, green tea contains the highest concentration of EGCG – this is due to the method in which the tea is prepared, by steaming it straight after picking, which prevents the leaves from oxidizing.
Weight Loss Benefits
Another popular and widely known benefit of green tea is its use as an aid to your weight loss. People who drink green tea will burn more calories daily, in addition to those they regularly burn – this is attributed to the stimulation to the metabolism which comes from green tea. Additionally, green tea is known to increase bone density, and in result, make your bones stronger. People who regularly drink green tea have about 5% denser bones than those who don’t, given the same conditions – and that’s something not to underestimate!
Helping Against Heart Attacks
An interesting benefit of green tea consumption has been noticed in a majority of its users – suffering a heart attack is less likely to be fatal in those people. Green tea drinkers are about two times less likely to die after a heart attack, than those who don’t drink the tea on a regular basis. It’s still relatively unknown why this is happening, but it’s suspected it has something to do with the increased metabolism rate, like all of the other benefits of green tea.