Suddenly tea and tea extracts seem to be everywhere, in all kinds products. You would think teas are the universal cure-all.
For instance, over the weekend I was looking at the ingredient lists for a number of cosmetic products, including daily chemical peel products and after peel moisturizers. Many of the products had tea extracts in them, usually called extract of Camellia sinensis. Additionally, tea extracts have been suggested to be helpful for treating skin damaged in cancer patients after radiation.
White tea has been suggested to help with obesity. An extract of white tea has been shown to stop the formation of new fat cells, and to make the existing fat cells start to break down the fat that they contain.
So what is white tea? I had no idea. It made from the same plant as regular tea, but only young still downy white buds and young leaves are used, and not fermented like regular tea. If you are going to make it and drink it, apparently you should not use boiling water. The water used for brewing should be quite a bit cooler than boiling water. This is supposed to be the best for its delicate taste. White tea is lower in caffeine but higher in antioxidants than regular tea.
Another news item suggests that an African tea that is used in traditional Nigeria medicine may help with diabetes. It is made from leaves of the lovely sounding Rauvolfia vomitoria and the fruit of Citrus aurantium. The tea helped mobilize fat, and in a small human trial after 4 months there was better glucose control. The genus Rauvolfia, a tropical evergreen shrub, is widely used in folk medicine and has been shown to lower blood pressure, have psychological effects, be a hypnotic and can irritate those with digestive diseases.
In Asia though the population tends to smoke heavily there is less cardiovascular disease and cancer than in the west. This is known as the Asian paradox. It has been suggested that part of the reason, for the lower levels of these diseases, is the high consumption of tea, particularly green tea.
Green Tea has also been suggested to have antibacterial activity too.
Low calorie and healthy. So, have a cuppa (used in the UK, for a cup of tea).
[tags]teas, white tea, green tea, Rauvolfia, obesity, fat cells, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, skin, chemical peel, antibacterial[/tags]
