Green Tea Health Benefits

Is Green Tea Healthy? An Overview on the Pro’s, Con’s and Practical Tips

Green Tea is the second most popular drink in the world, but it’s health beneficial effects have only been studied the past few years along with the health effects of other teas. Most studies only include teas made from the plant camellia sinensis which is what green tea, white tea, oolong tea and black tea are made off. Let’s be clear: There aren’t any “proven” health effects of green tea. There are however good indications for them and corelations between the reduced risk of lots of deseases and green tea consume.

We will explain shortly what it is in tea made from camellia sinensis that makes it so specials, then talk about side effects and five some practical tips.

Why is Green Tea Healthy?
All tea made from the plant camelia sinensis contains a special kind of polyphenols (to be specific it contains six catechines, mostly EGCG) which is the main contributor to the health benefits induced by green tea. The polyphenol level is:

  • the highest in green tea
  • very high in white tea
  • moderate in oolong tea
  • and lower in black tea

(depending on the level of fermentation, more fermentation means more oxidation means less polyphenol but more coffeine).

But polyphenols are antioxidants. Antioxidants are health beneficial in a very specific way, they reduce the chance of oxidative stress which pretty much refers to the aging process and lots of diseases like heart/metabolic diseases. Antioxidants fight free radicals and are usually ment when a product has “anti-aging” effects. We cover them in detail at Green Tea Health Benefits – Free Radicals and Green Tea Antioxidants and Green Tea Health Benefits – Why is Green Tea Healthy?

In ancient times green tea was also used as a stimulant, to get rid of excess fluids and to help wounds heal.
There are a lot of very specific effects of those antioxidants in green tea on diseases like cancer cardiovascular disease (heart), cholesterol, atherosclerosis which discuss here: Green Tea Health Benefits – Green Tea, your Heart & Cholesterol and Green Tea Health Benefits – Metabolism

The simple version: Green Tea contains the most levels of a substance that slows down the aging process and reduces the risk of a lot of diseases.

Side Effects of Green Tea
As I mentioned above, there aren’t any proven health beneficial effects of green tea, in some cases green tea might even be bad for you. This again is mainly due to the polyphenols, the substance mentioned above.
EGCG can i.e. reduce the ability of professional athletes. And in some cases the antioxidating effect might not be wanted.

Also using herbs as medicine is great, but since they are very complex they can trigger lots of side effects and interactions with your nutrition, other medications or other herbs.
Especially with high blood pressure or psychological disorders, you should stay away from green tea or at least ask your physician before regular consumption.

We cover more specifics on the side effects in the article: Green Tea Health Benefits – Side Effects

The simple version: Don’t take anything you read here/the Internet for granted! If you already have an illness ask a physician before consuming lots of tea regularily.

Practical Tips

  • The longer it brews the more health beneficial polyphenols are released. On the other hand, green tea should never brew long. Depending on the stewing time of three minutes should be perfect. (It it’s bitter, you can reduce the time down to a minute)
  • Use water with a temp of 90 degrees Celsius, so after boiling let it sit for a while, otherwise those polyphenols are destroyed.
  • If you’re looking for the health benefits of black/oolong/white tea, you should consider switching to green tea, but all of them contain the polyphenols mentioned above in a higher or lower doses.

More on Green Tea Health Benefits
Dozens of studies have been conduced by Harvard, Marryland Medical Center, in China, in Europe, at the National Institute of Health and we’ve collected an summed up a good amount of them in our articles here, but if you’re interested in those studies we’ve structured them here: Green Tea Health Benefits – Official Studies




Important: All of the articles written here are carefully researched, BUT we are no doctors, so don't take anything you read here for granted, ALWAYS ASK A DOCTOR before believing anything that we write. ALWAYS ASK A DOCTOR before doing anything suggested on this website.