Been thinking a lot about my coffee intake lately (which hasn’t been good lately, usually drinking weak coffee most of the day on some occasions) and while some studies have shown coffee to have numerous health benefits, the studies out on teas seem to show even greater benefits without the massive amounts of caffeine contained in black coffee.

Green tea (China Green Tea/Japan Green Tea) is an amazing drink.  As I have mentioned several times, it is full of flavonoids, which give green tea its health benefits.  These flavnoids, called polyphenols, are antioxidants.  A subgroup of these antioxidants, called catechins, are abundant in green tea.  One catechin in particular, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCg), is found only in tea and one of the most powerful antioxidants ever found.  They are 20 times stronger than Vitamin E.

Coffee is a questionable drink.  It has a considerable amount of caffeine that certainly can keep you awake, but too much caffeine is not good.  In an 8 oz cup, coffee can have about 100 mg of caffeine where green tea only has about 20 mg of caffeine.  The FDA suggests you keep from having any more than 200 – 300 mg of caffeine per day, depending on what report you find.  Two cups of coffee gets you to that limit where as several cups of green tea still keeps you far from the limit and gives you a whole bunch of health benefits not in coffee.

And have you seen all the green tea health information.  Here is just a short list of the green tea health benefits according to various studies:

• EGCG in green tea blocks the mutation of cells, reducing cell damage; blocks tumor growth; and blocks the liver enzymes that convert pro-carcinogens (i.e., harmless substances in the body that can turn into cancer agents) into carcinogens.
• EGCG is green tea blocks enzymes that cause cancer cells to grow and it can destroy cancer cells with damaging surrounding healthy cells. Scientists also revealed that this effect is 10 to 100 times more potent in green tea than in black tea.
• Tea increases the blood’s antioxidant capacity.
• Based on animal studies, tea may reduce the risk of lung cancer.
• EGCG kills cancer cells and, in particular, inhibits prostate cancer cells.
• Green tea has been shown to reduce damage to blood vessels in smokers.
• Green tea’s polyphenols can boost white blood cells, and might be an effective supplement to chemotherapy and radiation treatments that impact bone marrow and lower white blood cell count.
• Men who drank two to three cups of tea a day reduced their risk of prostate cancer.
• Women who had a history of drinking five or more cups of green tea a day had fewer occurances of breast cancer and slower spread of the disease.

Source: David Hayden

I think I might switch, see how it goes as I move toward detoxifying myself from all these nasty bad habits I have. The lower caffeine argument alone might go a long way in getting my sleep schedule back in order as well!

Here’s an article on coffee vs. green tea from someone else’s perspective: http://www.hostilelegacy.com/green-tea-vs-coffee/

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