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Green tea's social and gustatory comforts may now be exceeded by its medicinal benefits, according to one medical study. These salubrious effects are hypothesized to be attributable to green tea's polyphenol antioxidant properties, conclude the Japanese scientists who studied people who drink it. Particularly, they showed that deaths from any cause, especially in females, decreased in those who drank green tea.

Unfortunately, this study, reported in the September 2006 issue of the "Journal of the American Medical Association," does not show that cancer deaths are reduced by drinking green tea. More research may be required in this regard.

Still, the greatest positive effect was apparently in decreasing cardiovascular disease (diseases of the heart and blood vessels), this research found.

People who drank five cups of green tea daily were best protected from death due to heart and blood vessels diseases. The study also compared those 5-cups-per-day green tea drinkers to individuals who only drank one cup daily. Results, at the 11-year-follow-up on deaths from any cause, demonstrated these deaths were lowered by 16%, while deaths from cardiovascular diseases, in a 7-year-follow-up, showed a 26% decrease - all in the 5-cups-per-day green tea drinkers.

It is unknown, at this time, why females fared better in this research investigation on green tea drinking. However, it was postulated that cigarette smoking, which tends to be higher in males, may be a factor in possibly countering the beneficial effects of the 5-cup-per-day green tea regimen. Non-smokers, who never smoked at all, appear to have come out ahead in this study.

Additionally, drinking five or more cups of green tea daily also lowered deaths from strokes in both males and females.

The researchers point out, however, that further green tea studies must be performed to confirm these conclusions and render them clinically applicable on a global scale.

Learn more about this author, Helen Borel.
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