Recent Benenfits Of Tea

We've all seen positive research results about the benefits of green
tea. Well now there's a study documenting positive benefits resulting
from drinking both green or black tea.

Dr. Lenore Arab, PhD, Professor, Department of Medicine and Dept of
Biological Chemistry, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
explained, "This Meta analysis suggests that daily increase in
consumption to three cups of tea per day could lower the risk of
ischemic stroke by 21 per cent." Stroke is the second most common
cause of death globally, claiming 5.4 million lives per year. It is a
major cause of disability and has a significant impact on quality of
life. Of the two types of stroke - ischemic and hemorrhagic -
ischemic stroke accounts for around 83 per cent of all
stroke cases.


The study results indicated that drinking three or more cups of green
or black tea a day may reduce the risk of stroke by 21 per cent. And
the more you drink, the greater the cuts in stroke risk, according to
this meta-analysis conducted at UCLA on nine studies involving 4,378
strokes among 194,965 individuals.

Green tea contains between 30 and 40 per cent of water-extractable
polyphenols, while black tea (green tea that has been oxidized by
fermentation) contains between 3 and 10 per cent. Oolong tea is semi-
fermented tea and is somewhere between green and black tea. The four
primary polyphenols found in fresh tea leaves are epigallocatechin
gallate (EGCG), epigallocatechin (EGC), epicatechin gallate (ECG),
and epicatechin (EC). Though no one is certain which compounds in tea
are responsible for this effect, researchers have speculated that the
antioxidant epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) or the amino acid
theanine may be what helps. Antioxidants are believed to help prevent
coronary artery disease.

"And we do know that theanine is nearly 100-percent absorbed," the
head of the research team reported. "It gets across the blood-brain
barrier and it looks a lot like a molecule that's very similar to
glutamate, and glutamate release is associated with stroke. "It could
be that theanine and glutamate compete for the glutamate receptor in
the brain,".

"In recent years, a body of scientific evidence has shown that
regular tea drinking can have an important role in healthy fitness,"
says Douglas Balentine, Ph.D., Lipton Institute of Tea. "This new
study provides further support that regular tea drinking may be one
of the most actionable lifestyle changes a consumer can make to help
maintain heart health."

All these studies continue to contribute to our belief in the power
of tea