Green Tea

Last month, I wrote to you in House Calls about the positive benefit that green tea is showing in the treatment of inflammatory skin diseases. I want to remind you: Don't forget the other health benefits it provides— especially when it comes to staving off some nasty diseases.

Smoking is a major cause of heart disease and lung cancer—you don't need me to repeat this, but I will until everyone is on the nonsmoking bandwagon. Yet, for some reason, these two diseases aren't as big a problem in Asian countries, where smoking is just as popular and common as in America (if not more so). It looks like the difference comes in a teacup: green tea.

Over the past couple of years, there has been a good deal of evidence linking green tea to better heart health and a lower risk of cancer. In a lot of Asian countries, drinking green tea is a commonplace social custom. The researchers thought this could explain the noticeably lower rates of cancer and heart disease among Asian smokers.

Heart disease develops when your arteries become hard and narrow, usually due to a build-up of cholesterol-containing plaque (which are often the result of LDL "bad" cholesterol) on your artery walls. Smoking makes it worse, because it lowers your levels of HDL "good" cholesterol, which can help prevent heart disease. Here's where the green tea comes in.

Green tea is rich in natural antioxidants called catechins, which are known to protect you from all sorts of things, including inflammation, cancer, and heart disease. Antioxidants help fight off free radicals that can damage your body's cells and eventually lead to disease. Research suggests that the antioxidants in green tea can actually thwart the artery-destruction process by fighting off bad cholesterol. They also help keep your artery walls functioning properly and prevent blood clots. And it gets better, because even more research suggests that green tea antioxidants can block tumor formation in your lungs.

Now don't get me wrong: I would never tell a patient to keep up the smoking and just pick up some green tea. But how about picking up the tea anyway, whether you smoke or not? For a great-tasting, antioxidant-rich pick-me-up, I sweeten my own green tea with a little bit of grape or pomegranate juice. Also, you need to make sure you're drinking the caffeinated form -- the decaffeination process actually diminishes the levels of antioxidants in this drink. If you're not a caffeine lover, don't worry. Green tea has really low levels of caffeine as it is.

Dr. Alan Inglis House Calls