Benefits of Green Tea

There seems to be a lot of interest the last few years, from both researchers and the general population, in finding an answer to the question “is green tea good for you”?  I have seen it suggested that green tea can do everything from burn fat, prevent or decrease risk of certain types of cancer, increase brain connections, prevent neurologic disease, lower cholesterol, and reduce the risk of a stroke. Wow. One has to wonder how much truth exists in the midst of all the hype, if it is hype, and how to sort through all of the information to find reality.

As always, the truth can be difficult to uncover simply because of the complexity of living things, the sheer number of things that can affect health outcomes, and the resulting difficulty –even for researchers- in being able to discover and define absolute cause and effect. In addition, we all know that there will always be marketing tools to emphasize possible benefits, possibly without having firm proof or even strong suspicion of said benefits, in order to make a sale. So… here we are, people hoping for a miracle cure or preventive benefit that may or may not exist.

In the end, most of us don’t have the time or enough complete information to be able to separate fact from wishful thinking and to form our own conclusions based on what is actually known by the body of science at the present moment. I heard once that it generally takes about seventeen YEARS for the discoveries and conclusions of the scientific community to be put into practice and become mainstream thinking. SEVENTEEN YEARS!!!! I believe it though. But I don’t like waiting any more than the next person and when it comes to green tea, I don’t want you to wait either! So I have been going through tons of the actual scientific literature (professional and scientific journal publications) to see what I can find on several of the “hot topics” related to the perceived or proven health benefits of green tea- topics like green tea and weight loss, green tea and cancer, green tea and cardiovascular disease. Soon I will be adding articles on what I discover on each topic.

Intuitively it makes so much sense, and I suspect that there actually are many health benefits of green tea. Having said that, I am very curious to know where the scientific community stands on this topic and whether they have reached reproducible conclusions on the potential benefits of green tea. I expect that there will be conflicting information, as is so often the case, but maybe we can sift the information to see on which side of the scale it weighs heaviest. Either way, you will find here only factual information for your consideration. In the meantime, let’s drink to the health benefits we hope to see in our cups of tea.