What are green tea extract benefits? Why you should choose it to encourage the health of your body? And what are side-effects that you should also concern as well?
As well we know that green tea is one of popular ancient superfoods that can be great idea to give a lot of health-promoting effects. You may also be interested to read about matcha green tea (high quality of green tea), before continuing!
In green tea, we can find polyphenols which is useful natural compounds to promote good health for our body. Polyphenols also can be found in red wine, vegetables, and dark berries. It can be helpful to against cancer and keep the balance of the cholesterol in the body.
What is green tea extract?
It is derived or made from camellia sinensis’s leaves. About 5,000 years green tea has been popular and used for medical purposes in China and India. In order to retain the active properties of the plant, before allowing the leaves of camellia sinensis to dry, they are usually directed to the process of ‘lightly steaming leaves’.
Like in the productions of many herbs, the production of good green tea extract is standardized to make sure that a certain percentage of the useful active ingredients will not loss in the final capsulated form.
As mentioned before, polyphenols is one of useful active ingredients of green tea. Other active ingredients are EGCG (more powerful of antioxidant than vitamin E and vitamin C), catechins, and flavonoids. All of them are great antioxidants that can be powerful to eliminate the spread of certain cancer cells.
Green tea extract benefits
What else you need to know about advantages or benefits of green tea extract?
- It can be helpful to protect your body from cardiovascular disease (including stroke and heart disease)! Furthermore, it is also believed for one of good ideas to prevent some gastrointestinal cancers.
- It can be used to reduce levels of serum triglyceride and LDL (bad cholesterol). On the other hand it can be used to encourage HDL level (good cholesterol)! Moreover, the antioxidant effects from green tea may also be helpful to keep or maintain cholesterol from forming plaques in the heart’s arteries.
- Can be useful to control your blood pressure. In other words, green tea extract can be one of your good choices to lower your blood pressure level (particularly if you have hypertension problem).
- It will be helpful to maintain blood sugar levels. If you have diabetes (like type-1 or type-2 diabetes), your dietitian may recommend green tea in order to keep lower your blood sugar as close as possible at normal levels.
- There are some studies that found polyphenols in green tea is more powerful than vitamin E & C to against free radicals.
- Then it also good option to reduce your risk of food poisoning due to bacteria, and to eliminate the growth of unfriendly intestinal bacterial strains (like E-coli & clostridia) and promote the growth of good bacteria in the intestine.
Among populations where the amounts of green tea consumption are higher (like in Japan and China), the data of cancer cases are relatively lower statistically.
If you worry that the amounts of caffeine in green tea will keep you up (particularly at night), below are helpful tips and strategies:
- You can make a cup of tea in the morning, but avoid drinking it over 2 PM in order to prevent problem sleeping at night!
- Keep in mind that in green tea, there is about (10-50) mg of caffeine /cup (or about (15-30) % of a cup of coffee).
- Another idea is by steeping your green tea for about a half minute (30 seconds)! Then you can throw out the water and then use the leaves or teabag to make your tea!
Green tea extract side effects!
However, there are also some side effects of green tea extract that you should concern.
- Women who are being pregnant or breastfeeding should avoid consuming green tea extract.
- There are some individuals who experience skin problems (such as itching and skin irritation) and digestion problems! These problems may be correlated & related with a certain disease of the person.
- Due to green tea extract also contains caffeine, it may result insomnia or confusion (particularly if we consume it too over).
Talk with your doctor if you in doubt to get more detailed information about benefits and side-effects of green tea exact!
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