Does green tea lower blood pressure, cholesterol levels or blood sugar levels? Are there other health benefits associated with the beverage? Here’s a look at what we know.

From observing Japanese smokers, we know that those who drank a liter or more of green tea per day had a lower than expected incidence of heart disease, stomach cancer and throat cancer. Overall, there is a lower than expected incidence of heart disease among Japanese people. However, other dietary factors could contribute to that.

Foods

Most health experts now agree that chronic inflammation plays a role in heart disease, cancer and many other diseases that were simply thought to accompany the aging process. It turns out that the Western diet is high in inflammatory foods, including omega6 fats, white flour and corn. The Asian diet is rich in anti-inflammatory foods, including fish and vegetables. Just as a side note, the world’s oldest living man, at the of this writing, is from Japan and he says that his favorite foods are vegetables.

What can we do to prevent chronic inflammation, without giving up our favorite foods? Experts suggest that you eat those favorite foods, whatever they may be, in moderation, but try adding more anti-inflammatory foods to our diets. But, regardless of how healthy your diet is, you cannot possibly get all of the benefits from the known anti-inflammatory plant components, without supplementation.

Green Tea

Green tea contains phytochemicals known as catechins. These catechins have anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant activity. Oxidative stress is one of the other factors involved in heart disease, cancer and DNA degeneration. DNA degeneration is the ultimate cause of cell aging. If the degeneration is allowed to continue, the cell will die.

Resveratrol

One of the phytochemicals, which is just a fancy way of saying compounds found in plants, that we know about is called resveratrol. It is found in a different beverage and is believed to be the element that explains why the French can eat a diet that is high in fat, without having a high incidence of heart disease. The beverage that contains resveratrol is red wine. Resveratrol helps to prevent DNA degeneration, suppresses cell signaling that would cause the death of healthy cells and is believed to help prevent cancer, as does green tea extract.

In the US, the FDA has approved health claims made by supplements concerning the prevention of breast and prostate cancer; although they determined that there was not enough evidence to support other claims. I say, why not cover all of your bases. We know that none of these plant compounds are bad for us. So, why not get all of the help that we can.

But, the initial questions were; does green tea lower blood pressure, cholesterol or blood sugar levels?

• Blood pressure, no, but losing weight can help lower blood pressure and catechins support weight loss

• Cholesterol, yes

• Blood sugar levels, no, but catechins do promote the cells’ sensitivity to insulin, which is decreased in people with high blood sugar levels

If you’re going to take a supplement, get the most that you can for your money. The body needs a number of nutrients every day and most of us don’t get enough of them.