Health Benefits of Green Tea

I am a regular green tea drinker. I drink anywhere from 3 to 5 cups of green tea a day. Green tea has become such a passion of mine that I opened an online green tea store to be able to offer affordable high quality green tea to everyone.

My initial reason for drinking green tea is based on the health benefits. Although you can never be certain that all the findings in the studies are absolutely true, there seems to be overwhelming information to suggest that green tea has a number of amazing health benefits.
Health Benefits of Green Tea

Tea contains vitamins A, C, and E as well as health-promoting compounds called Flavonoids. The flavonoids, called polyphenols, act as antioxidants that counter the effects of reactive oxygen molecules that result from normal body functions and contribute to aging and chronic disease.
One subgroup of polyphenols, called catechins, is abundant in green tea (China Green Tea - Japan Green Tea), especially tea made from the very top of the bush. Catechins were discovered in the 1970s, when medical researchers were looking for the reason people in Japan's Shizuoka Prefecture - a major tea-growing area - had much lower rates of cancer than other Japanese, even when they were very heay smokers. One catechin in particular, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCg), is found in no other plant than tea, and it's one of the most potent antioxidants yet discovered - up to twenty times stronger than Vitamin E. Numerous studies have found EGCg to be effective in preventing and inhibiting cancer growth.

Catechins make up as much as 30 percent of the dry weight of green tea leaves, but only three to ten percent of black tea. Steeping the leaves for three to five minutes releases the optimal amount of catechins.

Here is a list of alleged benefits of green tea, but as always I would consult with your doctor for more information:

EGCG in green tea blocks the mutation of cells, reducing cell damage; blocks tumor growth; and blocks the liver enzymes that convert pro-carcinogens (i.e., harmless substances in the body that can turn into cancer agents) into carcinogens.

EGCG is green tea blocks enzymes that cause cancer cells to grow and it can destroy cancer cells with damaging surrounding healthy cells. Scientists also revealed that this effect is 10 to 100 times more potent in green tea than in black tea.

Tea increases the blood's antioxidant capacity.

Based on animal studies, tea may reduce the risk of lung cancer.
EGCG kills cancer cells and, in particular, inhibits prostate cancer cells.
Green tea has been shown to reduce damage to blood vessels in smokers.
Green tea's polyphenols can boost white blood cells, and might be an effective supplement to chemotherapy and radiation treatments that impact bone marrow and lower white blood cell count.

Men who drank two to three cups of tea a day reduced their risk of prostate cancer.
Women who had a history of drinking five or more cups of green tea a day had fewer occurances of breast cancer and slower spread of the disease.