Green Tea: "A Pot of Good Health"

The word for tea in Mandarin Chinese is pronounced "cha." In another Chinese dialect, Mingnan, it is pronounced "te."

Several other languages including Spanish, Yiddish, Indian, Russian and Portuguese, all have surprisingly similar pronunciations.

The anthropological and linguistic origin of this global phenomenon implies that tea has long been valued and traded all over the world.

Green tea in particular has been known for thousands of years to offer a large number of health benefits. Nadine Taylor, M.S., R.D., writes in her book, Green Tea: The Natural Secret for a Healthier Life, that "green tea has been considered a `medicine' in China for over 4,000 years and was written about by both Dharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, and Shen-Nung, the father of medicinal herbs.

For these and many other ancients, tea was considered `the Divine Elixir of the Gods'."

The medicinal properties of green tea observed by these ancients are presently legitimized through modern scientific evidence.

The healthful effects of drinking green tea are numerous. Lester A. Mitscher, Ph.D., and Victoria Dolby, authors of The Green Tea Book: China's Fountain of Youth, list these specific benefits found in green tea:

Scientific scrutiny of green tea's benefits has been particularly evident in researching how it lowers risks for cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

According to Mitscher and Dolby, one in every five Americans will eventually develop some form of cardiovascular disease.

The causes of most common heart conditions usually involve unhealthy diets and smoking.

Under stressful conditions, arteries "do not deliver sufficient blood to the heart" because of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and cholesterol blockages.

Stroke, Mitscher and Dolby continue, "is a consequence of a similar interruption of blood supply to the brain."

Green tea may help prevent cardiovascular diseases by controlling levels of LDL cholesterol.

Both authors cite the `French Paradox," where despite a diet rich in saturated fat and abundant smoking, French people suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

"The answer lies in red wine," the authors state. Wine is rich in polyphenols that are "believed to mitigate the effects of a fatty diet and smoking."

Mitscher and Dolby also write that red wine "has the same class of nutrients to which green tea's active ingredients belong." The French paradox, therefore, has a Japanese parallel where the people habitually drink green tea.

The authors refer to estimates that 75% of Japanese adult men are smokers and that a very low percentage of the population has heart disease.

The polyphenols in green tea, similar to those in red wine, help explain the Japanese paradox.

Tests depicted by Mitscher and Dolby showed that "when subjects ate three egg yolks every day, the concurrent consumption of green tea kept blood cholesterol levels in the normal range, despite the massive amounts of cholesterol present in the egg yolks."

Green tea may even have more unique active ingredients than those found in red wine. According to Professor Catherine Rice-Evans, as quoted in The Green Tea Book, the most potent ingredients are a group of antioxidants from the "catechin" family.

They include epigallocate-chin gallate (EGCG), epigallocate-chin (EGC), epicatechin gallate (ECG), epicatechin (EC) and catechin (C).

Acting as very powerful antioxidants, those substances scavenge free radicals and, therefore, reduce the risk of many types of cancer.

Mitscher and Dolby discuss a region in Japan called Shizuoka. Researchers discovered that "this area of Japan has a much lower death rate from cancer for both men and women than the country as a whole, according to vital statistics gathered by the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare."

This localized phenomenon, the authors continue, was correlated to the discovery that "green tea was a staple product in the tea producing Shizuoka region; people living in this area drank more cups than the average Japanese."

The statistical connection between green tea and its effect on cancer is extended by further scientific research.

Mitscher and Dolby report that Dr. Theresa J. Smith from Rutgers University "details a list of ways green tea extract undermines cancer, including preventing DNA strand breaks, inhibiting cell proliferation, decreasing the contact of carcinogens with cells, blocking cancer initiation, and slowing cancer progression."

With the advent of scientific research, the ancient knowledge of green tea's health benefits is now better understood.

From "Japanese Tea Ceremonies" to "Tea Time" in London, it has been part of almost every culture's history. Dharma and Shen-Nung each wrote narratives that propagated tea's global popularity.

Today, scientific identifications of substances like polyphenols and catechins confirm those narratives. But it is also true that we have our own taste buds to confirm that tea is indeed the "Elixir of the Gods."

Reprinted with permission from Whole Foods Magazine.