Lowering Your Heart Disease Risk is Just a Cup of Tea Away

It's not often you find something that can immediately improve your health. Most health-enhancing lifestyle choices have a cumulative effect over time.

You exercise once and you don't notice much difference. Exercise three times a week for three months and you'll lose some weight and improve your heart health. Eat more fruits and vegetables for one day and you'll boost your vitamin and fiber intake for that single day. Do the same for months and you'll noticeably improve your health in many ways.

Most changes you make to benefit your health take months to deliver result. But drink a cup of green tea and your heart will experience an immediate benefit.

Your blood vessels are lined with a thin layer of cells that make your arteries flexible and supple. If the lining becomes damaged your arteries become hardened and stiff and you begin to develop heart disease.

Within 30 minutes of drinking a cup of green tea, your endothelial lining begins to function better. The tea contains powerful antioxidants called flavonoids that help protect against heart disease—that's been understood for quite some time. But now, scientists have found that the benefit delivered by flavonoids begins to take effect immediately.

Drinking green tea regularly will also provide long term benefits, reducing your risk of heart disease and improving your insulin sensitivity. But a little instant gratification for your health is nice, too.

Stay well,
Heather Robwell

An Easy Way to Lower Your Risk of Stroke

Men who smoke are at high risk of heart disease and stroke. Quitting smoking is obviously the best way to lower your risk. Quitting smoking is the big goal, but there are other things you can do to lower your risk while you're working on that goal.

Finnish researchers recently discovered by accident that drinking coffee can help. The researchers were actually studying diet and cancer in male smokers. Part of the study was tracking major health events, including stroke. They discovered that men who drank eight cups of coffee a day were 23% less likely to have a stroke.

Tea is even better than coffee. Men who drank just two cups of tea a day lowered stroke risks by 21%.

Most strokes are due to hardened arteries—a blockage in the arteries forms cutting off blood to your brain. Researchers believe that coffee and tea both help because they have antioxidants that help reduce and prevent hardening of the arteries.

For some people coffee can make other existing health problems worse, so talk to your doctor before you begin drinking a lot more coffee. Tea, on the other hand, is free from side effects and provides a number of health benefits as well… so think about making tea a new daily habit.

Stay well,
Danny Wallace

An Easy Way to Cut Prostate Cancer Risks in Half

If cutting your prostate cancer risk in half were as easy as drinking a beverage every day, wouldn't you do it?

That's exactly what researchers out of Japan are saying. They compared the tea-drinking habits of 50,000 men over a 14 year period. They found that men who drink the most green tea—5 cups a day or more—have just half the chance of developing prostate cancer as those who drink one or fewer cups a day.

Green tea is rich in antioxidants. It also contains compounds that protect cells from mutations, which is how it helps to prevent cancers. Other studies have linked it to heart health and to a lower risk of diabetes.

Now, thanks to this study, we can add prostate health to that list.

Green tea is easy to find at your local grocery store. It only takes 5 minutes to brew up a cup or a whole pot. That's the approach I take. Around lunchtime, I brew a pot of green tea and enjoy it throughout the afternoon. I like to add a little bit of honey to mine, but it's good on its own, too.

Green tea does contain caffeine, but I find it doesn't make me jittery. Still, if you're sensitive to caffeine, you won't want to drink green tea after three or four in the afternoon or it might disrupt your sleep.

Aside from all the heart and prostate benefits, I also like the nice energy boost the tea gives me. Give it a try. It's easy, tasty, and really good for you.

Stay well,
Danny Wallace