Green Tea Advantages and Disadvantages

For many decades green tea has been used as traditional medicine. It has been extensively used in China, Japan, India, and Thailand to help in healing wounds, promoting digestion, controlling bleeding, regulating body temperature and modulating blood sugar. Unsurprisingly, many have reported that drinking the herbal extract can be very advantageous to our health.

Green tea products and supplements are obtained from the leaves of the tea plant Camellia sinensis. To restore most of their healing properties green tea leaves are steamed and so they have to be under minimum exposure of oxidation. Green tea supplements can be found in various forms including extracts, capsules, tablets and herbal teas. Lately the supplements have also been introduced for treating chronic illnesses like diabetes and cancer.

While in red wine there is a powerful antioxidant called resveratrol, in green tea there is also a potent antioxidant called Epigallocatechingallate (EGCG). Resveratrol is a secret why the French have a lower incidence of coronary heart diseases despite their fatty diet. Interestingly, researchers revealed that Epigallocatechingallate (EGCG) is much more powerful than resveratrol. EGCG explains why the number of heart diseases in Japanese men is restricted although most of them are smokers.

Although the potential advantages of consuming green tea are notable, most of them have not been proven by scientific research. However, some research has attributed the herbal extract with the following health advantages:

• It treats multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis
• It treats various infections.
• It treats blood pressure, heart attacks, and stroke.
• It prevents cancer and slows down its progression.
• It stops degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
• It neutralizes the overspread of free radicals in the body.
• It reduces the bad effects of LDL or bad cholesterol.
• It raises the metabolism of the body.
• It encourages the scab formation if applied directly to a wound.
• It prevents tooth decay by destroying bacteria causing dental plaque.
• It can help someone to lose weight in the way that it slows down the process of weight gain.

Even though drinking green tea is considered safe ad natural, it is essential to take products made from the herbal extract under the doctor's supervision or with care, because like everything else it may generate side effects. Remember that the main concern with taking too much green tea is too high content of caffeine and natural phenol substances. Among the disadvantages of green tea are:

• The caffeine of it can pass into breast milk causing sleep-related issues in nursing infants. That is why during pregnancy and lactation women must avoid consuming green tea supplements,
• It can induce the excessive stomach acid production so that those who have sensitive stomachs must restrict their tea consumption to avoid negative effects, such as a reduction in appetite, heart burn and diarrhea.
• Its contained caffeine is risky for those who have heart and high blood pressure problems. Such people should take the decaffeinated the tea to obtain the benefit of it to treat their diseases.
• For weight loss it is not the only and ultimate solution because it cannot act fast. It cannot be expected to make all fat go away.
• Too much caffeine from it can cause insomnia nausea, or frequent urination.
• While the natural phenol substructures in the tea are beneficial in preventing heart disease and cancer, if consumed in very large amount, they possibly can cause kidney and liver damage due to the toxicity.

Considering the advantages and disadvantages of green tea it seems that keeping drinking it to obtain a lot of advantages is good but consuming more by taking supplements may trigger the risks. Taking up to 10 small cups of the tea daily is all right but taking supplements containing up to 50x as much natural phenol substances as an individual cup of tea can be very problematic.