 Welcome
to GreenteahausThe Green Tea Reference Library Come and explore our library
to learn about the scientific evidence that shows the health benefits of
drinking green tea |
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| We are living in an era of information
explosion. Recognizing that there may be a positive relationship between
sound dietary practice and good health in view of the rapidly accumulating
data published in scientific journals, the US Congress passed the Dietary
Supplements Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA) with the intent to
meet the concerns of consumers and manufacturers.
The practice of “let food be your medicine” has been in existence since it was introduced by Shennong (ca. 2737 B.C.) and Hippocrates (ca. 400 B.C.), the two great physicians of ancient time. This practice has been largely abandoned by the modern medicine in the past century after the advances in chemistry and microbiology enabled us to identify the causative agents of infectious diseases and to synthesize antibacterial chemicals to control most of the communicable diseases. The public was led to believe that there would be a man-made drug, like a silver bullet, for every human disease. However, it has turned out to be untrue. There are no drugs to treat degenerative diseases of old age, like cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular diseases, etc. All modern medical interventions to “treat” these degenerative disorders carry a high risk to the patient and at a very high cost to the society. In spite of hundreds of billions of dollars spent in cancer research in the past 50 years, the cancer mortality rate in adult Americans has not significantly decreased. Now cancer is the most common cause of death of Americans below the age of 85. The educated consumers and some concerned healthcare providers have begun to search for evidence-based information to develop a healthy diet program and a healthy life style to deal with degenerative disorders associated with aging. And green tea happens to be such a conventional food which has been always on the Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) substances list of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and which has been demonstrated scientifically to be highly effective in delaying the inevitable aging process and its associated disorders. This website is dedicated to disseminating evidence-based information to the educated consumers who may consider using green tea as an enjoyable medicinal beverage to be incorporated into their diet program for health protection. The number of scientific publications on green tea research has increased exponentially. At the time of this writing, Entrez PubMed, the official Internet web site operated by the National Library of Medicine listed more than 1,770 scientific publications when the words “green tea” were used for search. Most of the articles were published in the past 10 years with a disproportionately large percentage devoted to cancer prevention. This is in part because there are no non-toxic drugs for cancer controls and green tea seems to be a promising conventional food useful for cancer risk reduction. But there are publications to suggest that green tea may be also useful in enhancing the anticancer effects of conventional chemotherapeutics (chemo), even synergistically with the less toxic antineoplastic drugs of the quinolone family, and in controlling Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, obesity, blood thrombosis, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, inflammatory disorders, viral infections, liver damage, sun light skin damage, and antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. As a COX-2 inhibitor, green tea may provide some of the benefits that Vioxx and Celebrex had offered to patients without their toxicities. We have selected the publications deemed most relevant and grouped them under sections A-R for the visitors to read. Recently, a few cases of liver damage after using green tea extracts for weight reduction have been reported. The report is included in the end under group Q. An abstract of the scientific report is provided under each title for the reader’s convenience. The readers may obtain the full-text articles from the publishers via the link at Entrez PubMed. In addition, three special brochures are listed under group S. These educational materials are organized according to the following categories. Follow the links to the publication abstracts.
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