If one of your resolutions is to be more healthy in 2010, why not give green tea a try? Over the past few decades, scientific studies have been coming up with more and more health benefits to be had from drinking this mild and delicate tea.  Green tea has long been the tea of choice in the East  “Better to be deprived of food for three days, than tea for one.” Ancient Chinese proverb.

So here are some of the potential benefits of drinking green tea:

1) A cup of green tea daily might reduce your chances of developing lung cancer, even if you are a smoker. A recent study compared the diet and lifestyles of 170 lung cancer patients with 340 healthy participants and showed that among both smokers and non-smokers those who didn’t drink tea had five times the risk of developing lunch cancer compared with those who drank a cup of green tea daily.

2) Tea drinkers are smarter and younger – in a study carried out by researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong looked at the length of telomeres, DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes that shorten as cells replicate and age. They found that particularly among older Chinese men those drinking three or more cups of tea (mainly green tea), compared to those having less than a quarter cup a day on average had longer telomeres corresponding to ‘“approximately a difference of 5 years of life”.

3) Green tea can help with weight loss.  In November, 1999, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published the results of a study at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. Researchers found that men who were given a combination of caffeine and green tea extract burned more calories than those given only caffeine or a placebo.

What makes green tea so special? 

The secret of green tea lies in the fact it is rich in catechin polyphenols, particularly epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is a powerful anti-oxidant: besides inhibiting the growth of cancer cells, it kills cancer cells without harming healthy tissue. It has also been effective in lowering LDL cholesterol levels, and inhibiting the abnormal formation of blood clots. The latter takes on added importance when you consider that thrombosis (the formation of abnormal blood clots) is the leading cause of heart attacks and stroke.

Choose from a selection of teas to buy online at:

http://www.garlandsorganic.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewCat&catId=128