Tag Archives: blood pressure

Why Should We Start to Drink Green Tea?

Health issues are a topic that everybody is interested in. People find healthy foods because they have irregular eating habits and living habits. Organic foods, vegetables, less meat consumptions, fresh fruits, supplements like vitamin D are major substances that most people are pursuing.

Amongst those various health-related foods, one of the most I love to have is green tea because of its huge benefits other than anything.

source: nokchawon

Green tea is the most well-known and popular beverage in the world. Even people living in non- tea culture conturies enjoy green tea for its health benefits.  The origin of green tea started in China and it is widely accepted that the first green tea appeared in history was in 2723 BC. Then green tea spread to East Asia and Britain, and then to the rest of the world.

source: teasenz

Then why is green tea so loved? What makes it so beneficial to our health?

Green tea has a variety of antioxidants and nutrients. Catechin and caffeine are well-known among them. These antioxidants and nutrients work in multiple beneficial ways in our body.

Here are few benefits of drinking green tea

 

1) Protect the heart health:

Having green tea prevent many risk factors for heart disease such as stroke, lowering blood pressure, and reducing cholesterol levels. Even after suffering from heart disease, green tea helps the recovery of heart cells.

2) Protect vision:

One of major nutrients in green tea is called catechins; a type of antioxidants. Because catechins are strong antioxidatns, they help to protect the eyes  from oxidation stress and also vision loss. Therefore, it would benefit to people who are surrounded by electronic devices.

3) Improve bone health:

Because bone is a living tisuue, it has certain balance between formation and resorption. As humans get old, this balance gets weaker too. Regular consumption of green tea helps to increase bone formation (mineralization) and weaken the cells that resorb it, so the balance of formation and resorption is maintained in normal.

4) Improve brain function:

Regular consumption of green tea every day could help to improve memory. According to the reseach done by University of Newcastle, green tea inhibits certain enzymes in the brain which cause memory loss. In addition, it is shown that green tea is also effective to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Green tea inhibits the enzyme in the brain which breaks down neurotransmitter (it transmits signals across brain nerve cells).

5) Prevent cancers:

According to the research in the Nature, regular consumption of green tea help preven cancers in humans by inhibition of enzyme that causes growth of cancers; typically stomach, breast, and prostate cancer.

 

source: ochaandco

Too much dosage of any foods or drinks always induce troubles as well as green tea. However, moderate intake of green tea regularly will change our lifestyle and health in highly beneficial ways. This is not hassle as much as visiting physicians and not hard as much as doing exercise everyday. This simple living habits can greatly change our health.

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Here’s Why Coffee Is Good for Your Health

We all love our morning coffee. Photo courtesy of blogTO

Coffee has existed since approximately the 15th century – and over these years it has amassed a lot of confusion about its effect on your health.  The media has played a role in pushing a negative view towards the effects of coffee. Us coffee lovers have always had a family member or friend comment with an expression of concern regarding our love for coffee.  It’s about time coffee drinkers put an end to this narrative!

Well, if you are a huge coffee lover, you will be happy to know that scientists have discovered that there is no connection between coffee and an increased risk of cancer or heart disease. In fact, the Universities of Southampton and Edinburgh published a meta-analysis investigating the effects of coffee on health. Amazingly enough, the paper used an extensive sample size analyzing over 200 papers! They found that drinking three to four cups of coffee a day may actually improve your health. Furthermore, they concluded that those who drank coffee were 17% less likely to die an early death, 19% less likely to die of heart disease and 18% less likely to develop cancer, compared to people who did not drink coffee.

Courtesy of Harvard School of Public Health

How does coffee work? The active ingredient in coffee is caffeine. Caffeine stimulates your brain and increases your alertness. Coffee also contains a lot of antioxidants, which are molecules that prevent damage that can cause cancer. Reactive molecules called “free radicals” attack our body and damage cells. Antioxidants stabilizes the oxidants, thus stopping them from harming our body!

David Heber, director of Center of Human Nutrition, UCLA discusses the effects of coffee.

Okay, now we know coffee can be healthy, but we also know that too much of anything is bad. How much coffee is too much coffee? Health Canada recommends adults limit caffeine intake to no more than 400mg/day. This is approximately three 8-ounce cups of coffee. Surpassing these limits could result in increased heart rate, changes in sleep patterns, heartburn, and more.

Remember that it in order to maximize coffee’s health benefits, minimize the amount of cream and sugar you put in your coffee. Sugar can singlehandedly nullify the positive effects you would get from coffee.

Robert Poole, the lead author of this study, says that these findings are “reassuring for coffee drinkers, as long as they drink in moderation”. Future studies will ideally pinpoint which type of coffee beans will have the greatest health benefit.

By Misam Ibrahimi

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Is Chocolate Really Good for your Health?

Ever have that craving for a hit of sugar or the pick-me-up that chocolate delivers? Justify your guilty pleasure by agreeing with the notion that chocolate is good for you? If you answered yes to the any of the above questions, you have just admitted to being a victim of the media’s portrayal of scientific findings.

Chocolate Bars
Published under the Creative Commons License; photo courtesy of Wikimedia user André Karwath.

In recent years, many scientific studies claimed to have proven that chocolate is the next best thing you can eat. Studies conducted by researchers at prestigious universities such as Columbia have targeted and provided evidence for how chocolate helps to reduce memory loss, on a small number of subjects in a very controlled environment. This research finding was published in the media and ballooned by the press, even though it failed to mention that the study was minuscule and that it did not even use chocolate, but rather chocolate flavouring. In addition, when the New York Times, a seemingly credible and well-read media outlet got whiff of the research, they promoted only the positive aspect of how chocolate improves memory, but did not describe the size of the study or the subjects involved. This lack of knowledge reduces the credibility of the article, but nevertheless is believed by readers. The media has a strong impact on what the everyday person believes, and exaggerating scientific findings can be dangerous.

Blood Pressure Monitor
Published under the Creative Commons License; photo courtesy of Wikimedia user Amirhossein Ashrafzadeh.

Furthermore, other studies conducted on the health benefits of chocolate have made the claims that chocolate promotes lower blood pressure, which ultimately reduce the cases of cardiovascular disease. Once again, the media has taken these findings and brainwashed hoards of people suffering from high blood pressure to run to their local supermarkets and load up on the kit-kat. What the media did not mention was the fact that while cocoa has been shown to reduce blood pressure, the research conducted was only on a short time scale; the long-term effects are unknown. Moreover, when chocolate is made, the cocoa is severely degraded as it gets mixed in with sugars and other additives, so the results of the study may not hold true in store bought chocolate products. Again, the media chose not to disclose this to its audience and we are left believing that chocolate will cure high blood pressure. Without all the information, it is scary to think that we let ourselves fall into the “whatever is in the news must be true,” epidemic.

The video below exposes an unbiased view on the benefits, or lack thereof of chocolate.

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Video From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtaUKweEVhY

The case study on chocolate just presents one instance of when the media has taken up studies and hyped up their findings, regardless of their validity, fooling the nation into believing myths. So the next question is, what will the news have us believe tomorrow?

By: Wesley Louie