How Green Tea Improves Your Heart in Just 30 Minutes

If you read a great deal about health and nutrition, you’re familiar with phrases such as  ”…..could help reduce….,“  “….has the potential to….,”  “…might decrease your risk for…”  Writers and researchers have to pull out fence-riding words to protect themselves as well as their readers.  I perfectly understand that.  I keep a bag of fence-riding words by my desk.

Being familiar with the terminology makes me pay extra attention to the words used in health reports.  When a particular research produces data with clear cut facts, I sit up and take notice. 

You may already know that my drinks of choice are coffee and tea.  My favorte tea is green tea - I drink at least 6 glasses of iced green tea daily as well as a mug of hot green tea in the evening.   I believe strongly in its benefits, so I keep trying “cool, kick-y” new ways to get my family to drink it.  If it’s made with added fruit juice or so much honey that bears from Tennessee show up at our door, they consent to drink it.

I really love it when my love of health and nutritional information collides with my love for green tea.  And if you’ll notice in the information that follows, the words don’t ride a fence.   

Green Tea Lowers Your Risk of Heart Disease

In the latest issue of the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation, researchers reported that people who drink green tea have better blood vessel function just 30 minutes later. Inside of an hour, your heart is already enjoying benefits!

For the study, researchers gave either green tea, hot water, or a beverage containing the same caffeine as green tea to a group of volunteers. The researchers measured the voluteer’s blood flow 30, 90, and 120 minutes after drinking their beverages.

After drinking green tea, the voluteers experienced significantly increased artery widening. The widening was evident after just 30 minutes. The other beverages (the caffeinated beverage and hot water did not produce any significant changes in the same individuals).

According to WebMD.com, it comes down to endothelial cells. Green tea improves the function of these cells.  Mini Cardiovascular lesson: Unhealthy, uncooperative endothelial cells play a key role in the development of clogged arteries. Clogged arteries, of course, lead to every cardiovascular evil you can imagine.

This research only strengthens green tea’s reputation in the cardiovascular community.  And in my household.

If you haven’t, yet, fallen in love with green tea, give it another shot. Brew it yourself, then sweeten it with honey and lemon.   My daughters prefer it when I add a little fruit juice to their glass along with the green tea.

Also, Snapple has a great bottled Green Tea - and they offer several that are flavored.  Personally, I love Snapple’s Diet Green Tea.  It can be hard to find, but it has 0 calories - and unlike just about every other diet drink on the planet, it actually has 0 sodium.  Whenever I find it on the shelves at the store, I load up.

I’m also completely wild about Panera Bread’s Iced Green Tea and Starbuck’s Shaken Lemonade Green Tea.

Give them a try, I whole-heart-edly recommend them.