This daily beverage has unimaginable health benefits
Hello everyone, today is YC.
Friends, what do you like to drink on a daily basis?
Me, drinking plain water feels dry and tasteless. Drinking carbonated drinks can cause bloating, and I'm worried about the health effects of sugary drinks. Fortunately, I still have my favorite drinks - exhale, gulp, and spit out tea leaves.
That's right, I like drinking tea, especially green tea.
Congratulations to all the friends who love drinking tea (especially green tea) like me. We have been taking good care of our bodies without realizing it!
Drinking tea, especially green tea, has many benefits. I think many of you have heard of it, right? What are the benefits and how are they good? Let's talk about them today. Let's take a walk~
You will see in this article:
Drinking green tea can help with weight loss
Green tea can replace coffee (if you are intolerant to coffee)
Green tea can invigorate and contribute to brain health
Green tea can reduce blood sugar level in patients with type 2 diabetes
Green tea is beneficial for heart health
Other types of tea are also good (except for high sugar and high-fat milk tea)
Why is green tea said to be good?
To say why green tea is good, we need to first look at what green tea is and what is inside it.
The appearance of green tea in three different stages (from left to right):
Soaked leaves, dried leaves, and soup
▲ Image source: Wikipedia
Green tea is one of the six common types of tea (green tea, black tea, white tea, yellow tea, oolong tea, black tea), made from the leaves and buds of tea trees, which have not undergone withering or oxidation processes (oolong tea and black tea require this process to be made).
Green tea, as a non fermented tea, retains many natural ingredients. Currently, it has been found that green tea mainly contains tea polyphenols, amino acids, alkaloids, trace elements, sugars, and so on.
tea polyphenols
Tea polyphenols, also known as tea tannins, are a complex mixture of polyphenols and their derivatives with significant differences in relative molecular weight and structure. They mainly include flavanols, flavonoids, flavonols, anthocyanins, etc.
Among them, catechins are the main components of tea polyphenols, including epicatechin (EC), epigallocatechin gallate (EGC), epicatechin gallate (ECG), and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). The mass fraction of catechins in tea is 12%~24% (dry mass), accounting for 70%~80% of polyphenols.
As the main active ingredient in green tea, tea polyphenols have powerful pharmacological effects such as antioxidant, blood pressure lowering, blood sugar lowering, and antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.
amino acid
Amino acids are organic compounds with amino and carboxyl groups in tea, and are one of the main chemical components in tea.
alkaloid
The alkaloids in green tea mainly include caffeine, theobromine, theophylline, etc. The mass fraction of caffeine in green tea is about 4.25%, theobromine is about 0.35%, and theophylline is about 0.14%.
In addition to the above ingredients, green tea also contains other components such as alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, esters, terpenes, etc., with the relative content of alcohol compounds ranging from 23% to 40%; Tea polysaccharides are also one of the bioactive components of tea, with their main functions being antioxidant, regulating blood lipids and blood sugar, modulating immune function, and inhibiting Escherichia coli.
There are so many effective ingredients in green tea, what are its specific benefits for the human body?
Green tea has these benefits for the human body
1. Help with weight loss
According to a 2021 animal study, catechins (tea polyphenols) in green tea may trigger thermogenesis and fat oxidation (the process of burning calories and fat), which may help with weight loss.
▲ Image source: Reference [3]
And tea polyphenols in green tea can reduce the absorption rate of fat and sugar by inhibiting pancreatic lipase, amylase, and glucosidase, thereby reducing calorie intake.
In 2024, a study from China Medical University found through clinical randomized controlled trials, animal model experiments, and in vitro experiments that green tea is rich in epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), which can alleviate the progression of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
▲ Image source: Reference [4]
The researchers recruited a total of 20 eligible NAFLD patients, each of whom was required to take gummies containing 300 milligrams of EGCG daily for 24 consecutive weeks. Finally, 15 patients completed the entire course of treatment and underwent assessments at baseline, as well as at weeks 12 and 24.
Week 12: There was no significant increase in liver fat content compared to baseline.
Week 24: The patient's liver fat content significantly decreased compared to baseline. Two patients experienced fatty liver regression at the end of the 24 week treatment period, with an overall NAFLD remission rate of 13.33%.
Compared to baseline values, the waist circumference and waist to hip ratio of these 15 patients receiving EGCG treatment were significantly reduced. Similarly, the total cholesterol levels of these subjects also significantly decreased after 24 weeks.
This indicates that green tea has certain benefits in helping with weight loss and reducing liver fat.
But! If you only rely on drinking green tea or taking epigallocatechin gallate to lose weight, but still maintain unhealthy dietary habits (high in oil and sugar, etc.) without making any other adjustments, then don't expect too much from "green tea weight loss"
Losing weight, to put it simply, involves controlling one's mouth (controlling intake) and taking steps (increasing consumption).
2. Can replace coffee
If you are sensitive to the caffeine content in coffee, you can try using green tea as a substitute. Green tea also contains caffeine, but less than coffee. According to data from the Mayo Clinic, an 8-ounce (237mL) cup of coffee contains 96 milligrams of caffeine, while an 8-ounce (237mL) cup of green tea contains only 28 milligrams of caffeine.
You can also consider choosing cold brewed tea. Soak 2 grams of tea leaves three times, and the amount of caffeine dissolved is 60-90 milligrams. Moreover, the lower the water temperature, the less caffeine will be extracted. So the popular cold brewed tea nowadays is more suitable for pregnant mothers to drink.
Someone might say, no, sometimes the milk tea I drink can make my heart skip a beat and I can't sleep at night. By the way, you said you drank milk tea. During the production of milk tea, in order to ensure a strong tea flavor, high concentrations of tea water may be used, which can lead to a surge in caffeine content.
▲ Image source: giphy
3. Drinking tea can refresh and benefit brain health
Refreshing
We have some perception that drinking tea can refresh us. The refreshing effect mainly comes from the caffeine component in green tea. Caffeine itself is a central nervous system stimulant, and excessive consumption can cause problems. However, green tea has a lower caffeine content, indicating that drinking green tea can help you stay alert without causing the anxiety and tension caused by high caffeine products such as coffee.
Beneficial for brain health
A 2016 study also showed that green tea extract can prevent the occurrence of Parkinson's disease. Green tea extract may exert a protective effect by controlling calcium homeostasis, mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK), protein kinase C (PKC), antioxidant enzymes, and activation of survival genes, thereby preventing the occurrence of Parkinson's disease.
A 2017 study showed that green tea can affect psychopathological symptoms (such as reducing anxiety), improve cognition (such as enhancing memory and attention), and brain function (such as working memory activation shown in functional MRI). The research results have demonstrated that the beneficial effects of green tea on cognition can be observed under the combined influence of caffeine and theanine, while the effects of taking either substance alone are relatively small.
▲ Image source: Reference [7]
4. It can reduce the blood sugar level of patients with type 2 diabetes
With type 2 diabetes, there will be insulin resistance. In this case, cells, muscles and liver cannot effectively absorb glucose to provide energy for the body. According to the American diabetes Association, poorly managed diabetes increases the risk of complications such as heart disease, neuropathy (nerve damage), amputation and eye problems. Therefore, for patients with diabetes, it is very important to manage the fluctuation of blood sugar.
A study published in 2014 showed that green tea can reduce insulin resistance. Participants in the study drank 150 milliliters of green tea or sour tea (Hibiscus sabdariffa, also known as roselle) three times a day for four weeks, which had a positive effect.
▲ Image source: Reference [8]
In 2021, a cohort study of 500000 Chinese adults found that among Chinese adults, daily drinking of green tea was associated with reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes and the risk of all-cause death of diabetes patients, but the correlation between other types of tea and type 2 diabetes was still unclear.
According to the results of many studies, if you have type 2 diabetes, you can consider drinking a moderate amount of green tea every day, which is helpful to blood sugar management and reduce disease risk.
5. Beneficial for heart health
Green tea can also lower high blood pressure.
Hypertension is an age-related chronic cardiovascular disease that seriously affects and threatens the health of the elderly. Daily management and stable blood pressure are also important issues.
A study published in BMC Public Health in 2023 on the relationship between tea consumption and blood pressure in the adult population of Southwest China showed that tea consumption is associated with reducing systolic blood pressure and lowering the risk of hypertension. The effect of anti hypertension varies depending on the type of tea consumed (that is to say, not only green tea can lower blood pressure, but other types of tea such as black tea and black tea can also).
Don't love green tea? Other teas are also very good
Not only green tea is good, but other teas are also good.
Drinking tea can reduce the risk of all-cause mortality
A prospective study published in Annals of Internal Medicine in 2022, targeting 500000 tea drinkers in the UK, showed that the higher the intake of black tea, the lower the risk of death.
▲ Image source: Reference [11]
In this study, involving 498043 men and women aged between 40 and 69, during an average follow-up of 11.2 years, researchers found that those who drank two or more cups of black tea per day had a 9% to 13% lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to those who did not drink tea. The higher the amount of tea consumed, the lower the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, ischemic heart disease, and stroke.
Black tea can become a part of a healthy diet
▲ Image source: cancer.gov
Drinking tea can prevent aging
In November 2023, a research paper published in The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific showed that drinking tea has anti-aging effects.
▲ Image source: Reference [13]
This study was based on 7931 participants aged 30-79 years from the China Multiethnic Cohort Study (CMEC) and 5998 participants aged 37-73 years from the UK Biobank (UKB), using composite biomarkers to assess biological age (BA) to explore the correlation between tea consumption and aging. The results showed that drinking approximately 3 cups of tea or 6-8 grams of tea per day may provide the most significant anti-aging effect. The tea studied includes green tea, floral tea, black tea, sweet tea, black tea, oolong tea, yellow tea, and white tea
*In this study, Tibetan participants were excluded due to their unique tea drinking habits (liking high calorie and high salt sweet tea and butter tea).
Another noteworthy point is that researchers found that compared to participants who drank alcohol, participants who did not drink alcohol had a more significant anti-aging effect through drinking tea (especially from never drinking tea to drinking tea), indicating that drinking alcohol may reduce the anti-aging effect of tea.
It is said that drinking tea is good, and the benefits of drinking tea next time are all here. It can help with weight loss, replace coffee to refresh oneself, resist oxidation, lower blood sugar, lower blood pressure, reduce all-cause mortality, and also resist aging
I announce that starting today, I will start a healthy lifestyle with 3 cups of tea per day!
By the way, drinking tea is great, but there are a few tips to note when drinking tea:
① If you are allergic to caffeine, avoid drinking strong tea
② Do not drink overnight tea
③ Try not to drink tea that has been brewed
④ Milk tea with sugar, milk, and various small ingredients is not tea