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Green tea has potent antioxidant powers that will enhance your life, restore your vitality and quite possibly may save your life. Green tea has been utilized as a wonder herb for thousands of years. Chinese people have been drinking green tea and reaping its natural benefits for about 5,000 years now. In our world we have only just begun discovering green tea's natural health benefits.

Green tea has been discovered to contain very powerful antioxidants that are called polyphenols. These polyphenols are stronger in concentration in green tea than in vitamins C and E. Green tea has very strong antioxidants that are currently being studied to see how they benefit people. In various studies done on animals and humans, scientists are discovering that green tea antioxidants are so powerful that they can help a person ward off certain cancers, such as bladder and throat cancer, and quite possibly breast cancer in women. The antioxidants are thought to help a person's skin remain vital and younger looking by fighting off free radicals in the atmosphere.

Derived from the Camellia Sinensis plant, green tea was originally cultivated in East Asia thousands of years ago. Camellia plants can grow very large, but it is the unfermented leaves of the plants that are harvested and eventually ground up into tea that is steeped and placed into our teacups. Scientists believe that three to five minutes of placing the teabag into your tea cup is all that is needed to reap the natural wonder-benefits green tea holds these powerful antioxidants. So far the benefits of the six catechins scientists have found, green tea contains incredible forces of nature in small tealeaves that are purported to fight free radicals in a person's body. Free radicals cause a person to age and that the free radicals can cause heart disease, and cancer. Clinical studies indicate that green tea's antioxidant properties may help prevent atherosclerosis, and coronary heart disease.

Breast cancer may have found its foe in green tea. Recent animal studies in Japan have shown that the antioxidant properties of green tea have fought off mild cases of breast cancer in animals. However the studies produced on humans at this time were proven to be inconclusive.

There may be hope for cancer victims though, due to recent studies of the antioxidants it has been found, that they may selectively inhibit the growth of cancer. The National Cancer Institute says that in recent laboratory studies of lab animals from Japan, the catechins fought off the oxidants before they could damage the cells of the animals. They reduced the size of the already existing tumors, thus inhibiting the growth of the cancer cells. An average cup of green tea contains 50 to 150 milligrams of polyphenols in it. Japanese Scientists are recommending that we drink two to three cups of green tea a day to get all of those good for us antioxidants. Drinking green tea is also believed to help us lose weight due to the mixture of caffeine, the antioxidants and other healthy, fat-fighting properties found in green tea. Possibly by drinking several cups of green tea a day we can fight off those free radicals, look younger, and live longer thinner lives.

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