Green tea is called the healthiest beverage on the planet. It is loaded with antioxidants and nutrients that have powerful effects on the body. Here are five ways the ancient elixir heals you from your brain to your skin:
Green Tea Protects Brain and Revs Memory
EGCG, a polyphenol in green tea, may guard against neurological diseases, studies on mice show. A drink with 250 mg of green tea extract increased the brain connections that process and store information
Green Tea Helps Manages Weight
If you’re watching your weight, green tea could be among the superfoods you want to include in your diet. Although research has not found that green tea can produce immediate weight loss, numerous studies have concluded that the properties of green tea can help you lose weight when consumed as part of a healthy diet because green tea increases energy expenditure and fat oxidation.
Green Tea Boosts Energy
Some studies have found that green tea can boost your energy levels, most likely thanks to the caffeine. In fact, Japanese researchers found that when endurance athletes drank four cups of green tea a day for about 12 weeks, their overall endurance increased between 8 to 24 percent almost across the board
Green Tea Boosts Oral Health
A number of studies, including one of 940 men in Japan, show that drinking green tea regularly can lead to a healthy mouth because tea’s catechins can actually help kill mouth bacteria. Mouth bacteria can turn the sugar in foods into plaque, and plaque produces acids that can cause tooth decay. Catechins may also help kill the bacteria that can cause bad breath.
Green Tea Protects Skin
Research shows that drinking green tea or placing green tea bags over your skin may help protect it from the sun’s ultraviolet rays, Moore says. This may be due in part to the extract epigallocatechin gallate, which showed promise against skin cancer in recent lab tests at the University of Strathclyde. Researchers treated human skin tumors with the extract for a month, at the end of which 40 percent of the tumors had disappeared and an additional 30 percent had shrunk
