Green tea is well known and extensively researched for its many health benefits. It contains the highest concentration of beneficial phytonutrients of all the teas. The following studies highlight recent findings of some more benefits for this healthful drink.

Green tea drinkers live longer

Drinking green tea is associated with extending your lifespan, suggested a Japanese study recently.

The study, reported in the October issue of the Annals of Epidemiology found that elderly Japanese people who drank seven or more cups of green tea a day were less likely to die prematurely than those who drank less than one cup a day.

Researchers followed 14,001 people ages 65 to 84 years old for six years for their green tea consumption habits. During the follow-up, 1,224 participants died.

The researchers found that green tea consumption was associated with reduced mortality from all causes, and cardiovascular disease among elderly people.

Research paper details:

Suzuki E, Yorifuji T, Takao S, et al. Green tea Consumption and Mortality among Japanese Elderly People: The Prospective Shizuoka Elderly Cohort. Annals of Epidemiology Volume 19, Issue 10, Pages 732-739 (October 2009)

Green tea helps weight loss

Drinking tea with a high level of catechins, beneficial antioxidant compounds found mainly in green tea, is linked to helping moderately overweight people lose weight, a study suggests.

The study conducted at Fudan University in Shanghai China, and published in the journal obesity, involved 182 moderately-overweight Chinese men and women ages 18 to 55.

For the study, the researchers gave subjects two daily doses of tea with various concentrations of catechins ranging from 30 to 900 milligrams. During the 90-day follow-up, they measured the study participants for their body weight, body fat mass and fat distribution.

At the end of the study, those who consumed the highest amounts of catechins lost more weight, inches, fat and total lean mass than those who had the lowest intake of catechins.

The green tea compounds are particularly effective at disposing fat located in the abdominal area, according to the study.

Research paper details:

Wang H, Wen Y, Du Y, et al. Effects of Catechin Enriched green tea on Body Composition. Obesity (2009)

Green tea reduces stomach cancer risk

A new study published in the journal Gut suggests that drinking five or more cups of green tea each day may help reduce the risk of stomach cancer in women.

Researchers at the National cancer Center in Tokyo analyzed data from six studies of 219,000 men and women ages 40 years and older.

Those who drank five or more cups of green tea a day were 20 percent less likely to develop stomach cancer, the researchers found.

The antioxidants found in green tea are thought to protect against gastric cancer and fight bacteria that have been linked to an elevated risk of stomach cancer.

Research paper details:

Inoue M,Sasazuki S,Wakai K, et al. Green tea consumption and gastric cancer in Japanese: a pooled analysis of six cohort studies. Gut 2009;58:1323-1332.

Green tea extract helps remove facial wrinkles

LED light therapy along with a lotion prepared from green tea extract is found to be much more effective at removing facial wrinkles than the conventional methods, German researchers reported.

According to the report published in the journal Crystal Growth and Design, high-intensity light from LEDs (light emitting diodes) is conventionally used to treat wrinkles, but the addition of green tea extract in lotion-form boosts the anti-wrinkle effect by ten times.

One downside of the light therapy is that the intense LED light creates high levels of reactive oxygen species, or free radicals, which can damage cells. Because of this, the researchers tested the potency of an antioxidant found in green tea extract called epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG.

The researchers said the therapy based on LED and EGCG only needed one-tenth of the time that would otherwise be required for the conventional LED therapy.

Research paper details:

Sommer et al. Facial Rejuvenation in the Triangle of ROS. Crystal Growth & Design, 2009.