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In a recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Xin-Xin Zheng reports that green tea reduces LDL and total cholesterol. This could explain the reasoning behind green teaÂ’s apparent reduction to the risk of heart disease. Xin-Xin Zheng and his colleagues from Peking Union Medical College pooled the results of 14 previous trials that looked at the consumption of green tea. The researchers divided participants up into one group that had either consumed green tea or taken green tea supplements for up to at least three months and another group which had been given placebos. In looking...

Cesium Above Limit Detected from Tea of 5 More Shizuoka Factories Shizuoka, June 14 (Jiji Press)--Shizuoka Prefecture said Tuesday that radioactive cesium levels exceeded the safety limit in tea leaves processed at five more factories in the central Japan prefecture. The tea products had 581 to 654 becquerels per kilogram of the radioactive material, against Japan's legal limit of 500 becquerels. The prefecture checked tea products made from the first flush tea leaves at 20 factories in the Warashina district. This brings the total number of affected factories in the district to six including one announced Thursday. The prefecture instructed...

Gov't halts shipment of tea leaves in 4 prefectures over high radiation levels The government on June 2 ordered a halt to shipments of tea leaves produced throughout Ibaraki Prefecture and parts of Kanagawa, Chiba and Tochigi prefectures, after detecting radioactive cesium in leaves exceeding the legal limit. Tests carried out in the wake of the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, from which large amounts of radioactive materials have leaked, detected radiation exceeding the legal limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram of tea leaves. It is the first time for the government to halt shipments...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – One of the beneficial compounds found in green tea has a powerful ability to increase the number of “regulatory T cells” that play a key role in immune function and suppression of autoimmune disease, according to new research in the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University. This may be one of the underlying mechanisms for the health benefits of green tea, which has attracted wide interest for its ability to help control inflammation, improve immune function and prevent cancer. > In this study, OSU scientists did experiments with a compound in green tea, a polyphenol called...

Ministries divided over radioactive tea The Yomiuri Shimbun Local farmers have been thrown into confusion after the health and farm ministries expressed differing views over shipments of tea harvested in Kanagawa Prefecture after fresh leaves were found to have exceeded government limits for radioactive cesium. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has been trying to restrict shipments of tea leaves from the prefecture about 300 kilometers from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant due to health concerns. The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, however, has claimed that despite the high levels of radioactive material, drinking tea made from the...

Chinese archeologists have found remnants of tea leaves in tea sets unearthed from the family graveyard of the country's first known anthropologist, a man who lived 900 years ago. The finding challenge the traditional theory that infused tea became popular only in modern times, said Zhang Yun, a researcher with Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archeology. Pieces of green tea were found in a dozen bronze, porcelain and stone tea sets unearthed from a cluster of 29 tombs in Lantian County, he said. Zhang led the excavations that lasted from December 2007 to December 2009, which produced a variety of sacrificial...

Scientists have confirmed that the healthful substances found in green tea — renowned for their powerful antioxidant and disease-fighting properties — do penetrate into tissues of the eye. Their new report, the first documenting how the lens, retina, and other eye tissues absorb these substances, raises the possibility that green tea may protect against glaucoma and other common eye diseases. It appears in ACS's bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Chi Pui Pang and colleagues point out that so-called green tea "catechins" have been among a number of antioxidants thought capable of protecting the eye. Those include vitamin C,...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Elderly men and women who sip on several cups of green tea a day may be less likely to have the blues, hint findings of a study from Japan. Dr. Kaijun Niu, at Tohoku University Graduate School of Biomedical Engineering in Sendai, and colleagues found men and women aged 70 and older who drank four or more, versus one or fewer, cups of green tea daily were 44 percent less likely to have symptoms of depression. Several prior studies have linked green tea consumption to reduced levels of psychological distress. This led Niu and colleagues...

Watertown, MA—Scientists at Boston Biomedical Research Institute (BBRI) and the University of Pennsylvania have found that combining two chemicals, one of which is the green tea component EGCG, can prevent and destroy a variety of protein structures known as amyloids. Amyloids are the primary culprits in fatal brain disorders such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases. Their study, published in the current issue of Nature Chemical Biology (December 2009), may ultimately contribute to future therapies for these diseases. "These findings are significant because it is the first time a combination of specific chemicals has successfully destroyed diverse forms of amyloids...

This article is about the health effects of using green tea. Since the days of Ponce de Leon, Americans have been fascinated with the search for the fountain of youth and the ever present concern about staying healthy. People are constantly looking for that next new product that will keep us in good health. One of the latest fads for helping to restore health is the use of green tea. Tea has long been known for its medicinal effects in many parts of the world, particularly in the Orient. Tea ceremonies have been a tradition in Japan for hundreds of...

I recently tried green tea for the first time and immediately became addicted to it. I must be drinking 10 cups a day and would probably drink more if I didn't care about sleeping at night. Being new to green tea I know little of the different types, quality, preparation, etc.. and was hoping some knowledgeable Freepers could point me in the right direction by recommending some of the better teas and/or links to any good web resources. Currently I've only tried two- both bought in regular Supermarkets so I'm guessing they are not higher quality teas. One of the...

According to results of a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, men with prostate cancer who consumed the active compounds in green tea demonstrated a significant reduction in serum markers predictive of prostate cancer progression. Green tea is the second most popular drink in the world, and some epidemiological studies have shown health benefits with green tea, including a reduced incidence of prostate cancer, according to Cardelli. However, some human trials have found contradictory results. The few trials conducted to date have evaluated the clinical efficacy of green tea consumption and few studies have evaluated the change in biomarkers, which...

Clinic researchers are reporting positive results in early leukemia clinical trials using the chemical epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), an active ingredient in green tea. The trial determined that patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) can tolerate the chemical fairly well when high doses are administered in capsule form and that lymphocyte count was reduced in one-third of participants. "We found not only that patients tolerated the green tea extract at very high doses, but that many of them saw regression to some degree of their chronic lymphocytic leukemia," says Tait Shanafelt, M.D., Mayo Clinic hematologist and lead author of the study....

Two Chinese dietary staples - mushrooms and green tea - may have the power to ward off breast cancer, mounting evidence suggests. A study of over 2,000 Chinese women in the International Journal of Cancer found large quantities of both in the diet slashed cancer risk by up to 90%. Research suggests chemicals in the foods block tumour growth and boost the body's natural defences against cancer. But experts say it is unclear whether the benefits will apply to all women. It is known that the rate of breast cancer in China is four- to five-times lower than rates typically...

Drinking green tea may help prevent heart disease and stroke, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Athens Medical School in Greece and published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention. "A couple of cups a day would probably be a good dose for people," researcher Charalambos Vlachopoulos said. "This is the first study to show these effects for green tea." Prior research has indicated that black tea can improve cardiovascular health, leading researchers suspect that green tea might even more effective. Many of the beneficial health effects of tea are attributed to its high content of antioxidant...

TUESDAY, April 8 (HealthDay News) — A combination of the active ingredients in reishi mushrooms and green tea inhibited the growth of tumors and extended survival time of mice with sarcomas, two Chinese studies show. Sarcomas are cancers of the bone, cartilage, fat, muscle, blood vessels, or other connective or supportive tissue. Both reishi mushrooms and green tea have long held a place in traditional medicine in Asia. Recent research has shown that both enhance the body's immune function, according to background information in a news release about the two new studies by researchers at the Pharmanex BJ Clinical Pharmacology...

Green tea can help beat superbugs according to Egyptian scientists speaking today (Monday 31 March 2008) at the Society for General Microbiology’s 162nd meeting being held this week at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. The pharmacy researchers have shown that drinking green tea helps the action of important antibiotics in their fight against resistant superbugs, making them up to three times more effective. Green tea is a very common beverage in Egypt, and it is quite likely that patients will drink green tea while taking antibiotics. The medical researchers wanted to find out if green tea would interfere with the...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An extract of green tea wards off colorectal cancer, animal experiments show. According to research reported at the Sixth International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention, sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, a standardized green tea polyphenol preparation (Polyphenon E) limits the growth of colorectal tumors in rats treated with a substance that causes the cancer. "Our findings show that rats fed a diet containing Polyphenon E are less than half as likely to develop colon cancer," Dr. Hang Xiao, from the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy at Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey,...

ISLAMABAD: Spanish and British scientists have discovered how green tea helps to prevent certain types of cancer. Researchers at the University of Murcia in Spain (UMU) and the John Innes Center (JIC) in Norwich, England have shown that a compound called EGCG in green tea prevents cancer cells from growing by binding to a specific enzyme. "We have shown for the first time that EGCG, which is present in green tea at relatively high concentrations, inhibits the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), which is a recognized, established target for anti-cancer drugs, " says Professor Roger Thorneley, of JIC. "This is the...

Can drinking green tea really protect against two big killers, strokes and cancer? A huge study in Japan suggests yes and no: It might lower your stroke risk but won't save you from cancer. The study's authors say their findings might explain why the Japanese are less likely than Americans to die of heart disease and stroke. Even so, the answers aren't clear. Green tea has been researched a lot, and many of the studies have come up with conflicting results. Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said an analysis found no credible scientific evidence to support...