Benefits of Green Tea
The benefits of green tea have been touted loudly and aggressively for the past few years. One benefit, however, you might not be familiar with is that green tea might be able to increase the amount of brown fat in people who drink it regularly. This is important, as brown adipose tissue is the healthy kind of fat that works a lot like muscle tissue in burning bad fat, the white kind.
A study conducted in Switzerland showed that adults who drank green tea every day had an increased fat burning rate of 5% over those who didn’t drink green tea. Some researchers and doctors believe that the antioxidants in the tea enabled the brown fat to use more glucose for fuel. 5% might not sound like whole lot, but burning 5% more calories by doing nothing more than enjoying green tea every day is actually pretty impressive.
Of course, there are other benefits to drinking green tea. Green tea contains beneficial antioxidants known as “catechins.” The catechins in green tea are concentrated epigallocatechin-3-gallate, commonly known as EGCG. The EGCG is able to neutralize harmful free radicals that might lead to blood clots, heart disease, atherosclerosis, and certain types of cancer. Although the studies on green tea and cancer have been limited, so far the results look promising. One major Japanese study revealed that women with breast cancer fared better after surgery if they drank green tea before and after their surgical procedures. Also, a study on lung cancer showed that imbibing just two cups of green tea on a daily basis can decrease your chance of developing lung cancer by as much as 18%. Furthermore, a Chinese study on green tea seems the most promising of all. The study suggests that drinking large amounts of green tea can lessen your chance of developing prostate cancer, colon cancer, esophageal cancer, stomach cancer, rectal cancer, and pancreatic cancer.