Green Tea Helps Prevent Arthritis

Reduces Painful Inflammation

Green tea is a pretty amazing beverage when it comes to your nutritional health.  It’s antiviral, anti-cavity, anti-allergy and prevents cataracts.  Green tea has also been promoted by nutritionists as a beverage that can lower your blood pressure, keep your heart healthy and prevent cancer.  Now, in the latest health news, researchers are claiming that the tea can reduce your risk of developing arthritis by fighting inflammation.

In a recently conducted clinical trial, researchers began with the premise that a number of factors, including inflammation and “oxidative stress,” are believed to play a role in the development of chronic joint diseases.  They went on to investigate extracts of green tea and the “polyphenols” that are present in them.  They found that these polyphenols can be shown to inhibit the inflammatory responses in vitro in different cell types and the development of arthritis in animal-model studies.

In particular, they found “considerable evidence” that “epigallocatechin-3-gallate” (EGCG), the predominant green-tea polyphenol, inhibits enzyme activities and signal-transduction pathways that play important roles in inflammation and joint destruction in arthritis.

Green tea may very well be a viable alternative cure for banishing painful inflammation associated with arthritis.  The tea is thought to contain more than 4,000 chemical compounds.  However, the ones that are most important to your health are the “flavonoids.”  These flavonoids are the same type that are found in red wine and berries.  There are about 316 milligrams (mg) of flavonoids in a cup of green tea.  The most potent flavonoid is one with a long name that was mentioned in the study: “epigallocatechin gallate” (EGCG). EGCG is a type of flavonoid that is known as a “catechin.”  Research has shown that catechins are more effective antioxidants than even vitamins C and E.

Making Green Tea

Now, a few tips for making a good cup of green tea: steep it for 3 minutes to release all of the health-promoting compounds.  Also, researchers say that tea is packed in tea bags actually releases more polyphenols than loose leaves do.  Apparently, the tea in tea bags tends to be more broken down into smaller particles, which helps more polyphenols be dissolved in the hot water.