More green tea benefits discovered

Green tea drinkers live longer

Drinking green tea may help prevent heart disease and extend your lifespan, suggests a Japanese study reported by worldteanews.com recently.

The study in the October issue of the Annals of Epidemiology found elderly Japanese people who drank seven or more cups of green tea a day were less likely to die prematurely than those who drank less than one cup a day.

Researchers at Okayama University and other organizations followed 14,001 people ages 65 to 84 years old for six years for their green tea consumption habits. During the follow-up, 1,224 participants died.

The researchers found that green tea consumption is associated with reduced mortality from all causes and cardiovascular disease among elderly people.

However, they did not find any inverse association between cancer mortality and green tea consumption.

Green tea prevents osteoporosis

Drinking green tea may help maintain bone health or prevent osteoporosis, according to a new study first reported on Sept. 18 by Sawf News.

The in-vitro study conducted in Hong Kong and published in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry showed that epigallocatechin (EGC), a chemical found in green tea, boosts the activity of a key enzyme that promotes bone growth by up to 79 percent.

For the study, Ping Chung Leung and colleagues tested a few compounds found in green tea including gallocatechin (GC), and gallocatechin gallate (GCG) in addition to EGC in cultured osteoblasts, bone-forming cells.

Previous studies have already shown that green tea offers many health benefits including preventing cancer, heart disease, and other health conditions.  While the bone-protective effects of tea have been known for some time, no previous studies have been conducted to clarify which compounds are responsible for the effect.

In addition to the promotion of bone growth, EGC also significantly boosts bone mineralization in the cells, which strengthens bones and blocks the activity of osteoclasts to break down, researchers said.

The green tea compounds do not cause any toxic effects to the bone cells, according to the study.

Green tea extract helps remove facial wrinkles

LED light therapy along with a lotion prepared from green tea extract are found to be much more effective at removing facial wrinkles than the conventional methods, German researchers reported.

According to the report published in the journal Crystal Growth and Design, high-intensity light from LEDs (light emitting diodes) is conventionally used to treat wrinkles, but the addition of green tea extract in lotion-form boosts the anti-wrinkle effect by ten times.

One downside of the light therapy is that the intense LED light promotes generation of high levels of reactive oxygen species which can damage cells.  Because of this, the researchers tested the potency of an antioxidant found in green tea extract called epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG.

The researchers said the therapy based on LED and EGCG only needs one-tenth of the time that would otherwise be required for the conventional LED therapy.

The study was first reported by monstersandcritics.com.


Green tea helps weight loss

Drinking tea with a high level of catechins may help moderately overweight people lose weight, a new study led by researchers from the Lipton Institute of Tea suggests.

The study conducted at Fudan University in Shanghai China, and published in the journal Obesity, involved 182 moderately-overweight Chinese men and women ages 18 to 55.

For the study, the researchers gave subjects two daily doses of tea with various concentrations of catechins ranging from 30 to 900 milligrams.  During the 90-day follow-up, they measured the study participants for their body weight, body fat mass and fat distribution.

At the end of the study, those who consumed the highest amounts of catechins lost more weight, inches, fat and total lean mass than those who had the lowest intake of catechins.

The green tea compounds are particularly effective at disposing fat located in the abdominal area, according to the study.

The story was first reported by worldteanews.com.


Green tea reduces stomach cancer risk

A new study published in the journal Gut suggests that drinking five or more cups of green tea each day may help reduce the risk of stomach cancer in women.

Researchers at the Nantional Cancer Center in Tokyo analyzed data from six cohort studies of 219,000 men and women ages 40 years and older.

Those who drank five or more cups of green tea a day were 20 percent less likely to develop stomach cancer, the researchers found.

The green tea's antioxidants may protect against gastric cancer and or fight bacteria that have been linked to an elevated risk of stomach cancer.

Green tea compounds have been known for their anti-cancer properties.

The study was first reported by naturalproductsmarketplace.com

By David Liu davidl at foodconsumer dot org

edited by Eileen McGaurin