Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Matters of the Heart




Chinese tea - Matters of the Heart

In the late 1960s, American scientists noticed some interesting findings. While doing autopsies, they observed that the arteries of Chinese tea-drinking Chinese Americans had only two-thirds as much coronary artery disease as Caucasian coffee drinkers. Since that time, many more studies have shown a link between drinking tea and preventing heart disease.
As we all now Chinese tea helps to cleanse the blood of triglycerides and cholesterol. In 2003, the Archives of Internal Medicine published a study in which, over a twelve-week period, 240 Chinese men and women with moderately high cholesterol were given either a green tea extract augmented with theaflavins from black tea or a placebo with no Chinese tea. After the twelve weeks, the placebo group had no changes in their total cholesterol or their "bad" LDL cholesterol levels. In the tea group, however, total cholesterol dropped by 11.3 percent and LDL by 16.4 percent. At the same time, the "good" HDL cholesterol levels increased by 2.3 percent in the tea-drinking group, while the placebo group saw an increase of only 0.7 percent.
Tea also protects the heart by helping to lower blood pressure. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is the most common form of heart disease, and is a major risk factor for heart-related death. A study of Chinese tea drinkers published in 2004 showed that drinking as little as a half-cup of green or Oolong tea per day may lower the risk of high blood pressure by nearly 50 percent.
Researchers found that men and women who drank tea on a daily basis for at least a year were much less likely to develop hypertension than those who didn't, and the more tea they drank, the bigger the benefits. Those who drank at least a half-cup of moderate strength green or Oolong tea per day for a year had a 46-percent lower risk of developing hypertension than those who didn't drink tea. Among those who drank more than two and a half cups of tea per day, the risk of high blood pressure was reduced by 65 percent.
So this Oolong tea does help you prevent heart diseases and cancer as I will talk in my future articles. It has a great effect over our body and mind
Chinese tea facts
The first auction of tea grown in India was held in London in 1838; however, the tea was from Chinese plants they had finally managed to grow in India.
In 1856, Chinese tea was planted in and around Darjeeling, India, and grew very well. Darjeeling tea became one of the best and most prized teas of the Chinese varieties.
In the late 1800s, after the Opium Wars, China would no longer provide England with any tea. The Indian tea market blossomed. Today India produces more tea than any other country except for China

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