How many of you are tea drinkers? If you’re a tea aficionado, you’re probably feeling pretty smug about all the positive news that’s come out over the past few years regarding the health benefits of tea. Tea has often been maligned because of its caffeine content, but now we know that tea is a powerhouse of antioxidants that may prevent all sorts of health problems. This week, I’ll focus on green tea in particular.
Now that summer is upon us, many of you probably reach for a glass or bottle of iced tea to quench your thirst. New to the market are bottles of iced green tea (remember the days when iced tea only came in a powder that was more sugar than tea?). Several companies now make iced green tea, including Lipton, Snapple and AriZona.
What’s so great about green tea, anyway? Well, first, green tea comes from the same plant as black tea, Camellia sinensis. While green tea might be something more of a novelty in the United States, it’s actually been quite popular in China for, oh, the past 5,000 years or so. Green tea is made from the unfermented leaves of the tea plant, and supposedly contains the highest amounts of polyphenols, which are types of antioxidants that fight free radicals and possibly prevent certain types of diseases.
For thousands of years, people in China, India, and Thailand have used green tea for numerous medicinal purposes. Thanks to population studies, we now know much more about the health properties that green tea has to offer. For example, green tea may help prevent heart disease by improving cholesterol levels. In one recent study, 90% of the subjects who drank one liter of green tea daily for four weeks had a 9% reduction in LDL (bad) cholesterol, and, in 69% of the subjects, there was a 4% increase in HDL (good) cholesterol.
In another study, done with rats with diabetes, green tea helped lower blood glucose levels and also prevented the formation of diabetic cataracts. To get the same benefits, humans would need to drink about five 8-ounce cups of green tea every day.
Green tea may also help people with insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes. In another study, also done with rats, green tea helped lower fasting glucose, fasting insulin, and fasting triglyceride levels. And the rats also had a decrease in the amount of visceral fat (the kind of fat that can contribute a host of health problems, including diabetes).
Other studies point to possible benefits of green tea in preventing different types of cancers, including breast, ovarian, bladder, lung, and pancreatic cancers. Some inconclusive evidence also points to a role for green tea in weight loss. Several studies have shown that drinking green tea or taking green tea as a supplement can speed up metabolism (the rate at which you burn calories). This effect is apparently due to a compound in tea called epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG)—try dropping this term at your next cookout!
Obviously, more research needs to be, and likely will be, done looking at the effects of green tea on health. In the meantime, if you’ve never tried green tea, give it a go. Hot or cold, green tea has a fairly mild flavor. If you prefer cold green tea for the hot summer months, a few words of caution are in order: Many of the “ready to drink” bottles of iced green tea can are loaded with calories and carbohydrate.
For example, a 20-ounce bottle of AriZona Green Tea with Ginseng & Honey contains 175 calories and 45 grams of carbohydrate (that’s like eating three slices of bread). Fortunately, AriZona makes a diet version with practically no calories and only about 2 grams of carbohydrate. The same pretty much holds true for Lipton’s Green Iced Tea with Citrus—a 16.9-ounce bottle has 169 calories and 44 grams of carb, but the diet version contains no calories or carbs. Lipton also makes single-serving packets of iced green tea powder called “Green Tea To Go” that you add to water, and these, too, have no calories or carbs. Snapple also has a diet green tea. As always, read the label of any food or beverage for serving size and total carbohydrate. Cheers!
I would like to add that white tea has even more antioxidants than green tea. However, if you really like the taste of various teas like I do then you might find white tea lacking in flavor. It’s good for you but doesn’t really taste very good.
Posted by Burbot | Jul 18, 2007 at 5:37 pmI also wouldn’t waste my money buying processed tea. It’s only cheap if you make it yourself. You can also save a lot of money by purchasing various teas in an oriental market. The variety and quality in most ethnic markets is excellent. You can buy it in bulk or in bags.
ia any concern about potassium sorbate found in Liptons diet green tea with citrurs?
Posted by kay | Jul 20, 2007 at 1:57 pmArizona Diet Green Tea with Ginseng has a comment on the back of the bottle in Red: “contains a small amount of honey Not for use by diabetics without advice of a physican”. It seems Diet green tea would be a better choice for diabetics over most other diet drinks. And since honey is natural - what would the concern be for a diabetic to drink this?
Posted by ktbreen | Jun 19, 2008 at 11:03 amHi ktbreen,
Whenever you’re in doubt, always look at the Nutrition Facts label. I checked the label of this tea, and the serving size is 8 ounces (there are 2.5 servings per bottle). The total carbohydrate per serving is less than 1 gram. Even if you drank the whole bottle, you’d probably only get about 3 grams of carb, which is negligible and wouldn’t affect your blood glucose. Any food or beverage with less than 5 grams of carb per serving is considered a “free” food and won’t impact your glucose levels to any great extent.
Posted by acampbell | Jun 19, 2008 at 12:34 pmWhy does it say to contact your doctor before drinking the diet version of Green Tea? Is there an ingreient that might not be good for diabetics?
Posted by Vickie | Jul 16, 2010 at 4:20 pmHi Vickie,
The message might be specific to a particular brand of diet green tea, as I have not come across that warning before. Could you let me know the brand of green tea or send me the ingredients that are in the tea? Thanks.
Posted by acampbell | Jul 19, 2010 at 9:47 amGreen tea contains Antioxidants and Catechin that could be a polyphenolic antioxidant terribly helpful to fight the free radicals that are known to have an effect on the aging method and that influence general health in an exceedingly negative way.
This drink contains also metilxantinas like caffeine, theobromine and theophylline which have an effect on the lipolysis, i.e.the hydrolysis of lipids.
These substances will increase the metabolism and help to lose weight. Researchers of the University of Geneva in Switzerland found in a study that men who had been given a mixture of inexperienced tea extract and caffeine burned additional calories than those who had been given only caffeine or a placebo.
I also added Vitamin E oil by cutting up the gel shaped capsules. Turned out that, even though the Vit E oil was a small amount sticky, after 15 minutes of masking, it kinda created my skin glow…. Luckily I didn’t escape from Vit E oil!
I really like how the cold green tea feels on my skin. Its cooling (duh cos I took it out of fridge) and I enjoyed washing my face with it.
I’m thinking of trying out Inexperienced Tea + honey+ Aspirin mask next!
Posted by Demaree | Sep 13, 2010 at 4:29 amI am a diabetic, and I drink a lot of Arizona diet green tea with ginseng. While the health benifits of green tea are good, and just a touch of honey isn’t an issue, I have a question regarding artificial sweeteners. I read online that artificial sweeteners are not good for diabetics with one exception and that is Stevia. The Arizona diet green tea contains Splenda. What do you guys think? Mark :)
Posted by Mark | Dec 06, 2010 at 11:49 amHi Mark,
There’s really no evidence that artificial sweeteners are harmful. Sweeteners such as aspartame and sucralose (Splenda) have been extensively tested. Stevia isn’t necessarily any “better” than other sweeteners, either. That being said, I’m not a big proponent of consuming too much of artificial sweeteners, so the answer really depends on how much diet green tea you’re drinking, and what else you might be taking in that contains these sweeteners. Two or three bottles of the green tea each day would be prudent, in my opinion.
Posted by acampbell | Dec 07, 2010 at 8:57 amWhat about the aspertane in diet green tea. I have heard that aspertane is NOT good. How does this relate to a diabetic for side effects?
Thank you on behalf of my husband.
Posted by Joye Linford | Mar 11, 2011 at 1:36 amHi Joye,
Aspartame is a safe sweetener to use for most people. It’s been studied and tested. There are no good studies to show that it’s harmful in any way. And there should be no reason for aspartame to cause side effects in people with diabetes, as it doesn’t affect blood sugar.
Posted by acampbell | Mar 11, 2011 at 10:43 amI JUST RECEIVED AN EMAIL OF NEGATIVE ISSUES ABOUT ASPARTEME–IT TURNS TO FORMALDAHYDE IN YOUR BLOODSTEAM
Posted by BARBARA FALINO | May 30, 2011 at 10:41 pmHi Barbara,
Actually, there are a lot of Internet scams about aspartame, so you should be suspicious of e-mails such as the one you received. Aspartame can break down into formaldehyde. However, you might be surprised that some fruits break down into formaldehyde, too — in fact, even more so than aspartame. Aspartame has been studied quite a bit and there are no good studies showing that it’s harmful.
Posted by acampbell | May 31, 2011 at 1:01 pm