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Five Top Teas To Improve 5 Top Health Issues
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Tea has a long and illustrious tradition, even if it didn’t start out as a relaxation or meditation drink. Tea was originally used only for medicinal purposes and as a way to improve the health of the drinker. And it turns out that modern research might prove that the ancient tea drinkers actually had a point or two about the tea’s health benefits. Many different studies led by researchers around the world have found that teas contain a number of antioxidants, compounds and nutrients that are beneficial to health and to helping prevent or even cure certain ailments in the body.
The tea plant, and its varieties, is what makes up the main brews of teas that most of us are familiar with today. Black tea, green tea, jasmine and oolong tea are all different varieties of the Camelia sinensis plant. The teas are all derived from the same plant and the varieties appear in the fermentation, or not, of the tea leaves. Green tea is made from the non-fermented leaves, black tea is fermented tea leaves and oolong tea is semi-fermented tea leaves. These main teas are the most popular, although there are many other types of infusions and varieties of teas.
Rooibos tea is from a completely different plant and there are many other medicinal teas that use various plants and flowers. There are also a few other types of tea infusions, not created from the original tea plant, that have been used to create medicinal teas and health-boosting drinks. Hibiscus and lemon verbena tea infusions are just two of the other teas out there that are full of health promoting compounds. Here are some of the health benefits that you can reap from drinking tea on a regular basis.
1. Green Tea – Improves Memory & Disrupts Cancers
Green tea has gained some popularity lately as a drink that can help with weight loss and an overall feeling of betterment, but green tea has many more health benefits than that. Green tea has been found in many different studies to actually be very beneficial in enhancing cognitive function and one study even connected it with better memory, the kind of day-to-day use. Researchers at the University Hospital of Basel in Switzerland found that individuals that drank 27.5 grams of green tea in one day showed intense brain activity and better connectivity between the frontal and parietal lobes – two regions that are linked to aspects of learning, memory processing and decision-making.
Green tea has also been linked to many health benefits due to the amount of antioxidants present in the drink. Antioxidants help to prevent the free radical damage in the body that leads to aging, which means that it is very important to have an abundance of antioxidants especially as we age. One specific antioxidant in green tea may even help to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s. Epigallocatechin gallate is an antioxidant that interacts with the building blocks that form beta-amyloid plaques and thus may help to prevent Alzheimer’s.
The same antioxidant also has the potential to help prevent cancers, according to research done by the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute in California. Their research showed that this particular antioxidant in green tea can disrupt the metabolism of pancreatic cancer cells. The same interaction could be applicable to other forms of cancers.
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