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How Green Tea Affects Blood Pressure

By Solha Park, PharmD and Moa Park, PharmD

Among the major risk factors of developing cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack, heart failure and stroke, high blood pressure is most closely and consistently related to the development of cardiovascular disease requiring immediate treatment with medications and lifestyle modifications.1 While there are many ways to control high blood pressure, regular consumption of green tea has been shown to have a positive relationship with lowering blood pressure when combined with healthy diet and regular exercise.2-5

High blood pressure is a chronic medical condition that can lead to many serious health problems including cardiovascular diseases and kidney disease. Persistent high blood pressure may damage other parts of body such as blood vessels and eyes. While it does not have any symptoms, these long-term complications usually take several years to develop. Fortunately, high blood pressure can be detected easily through a regular medical checkup and can be controlled with lifestyle modification and medications.6 Read more…

Category: Green Tea
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Overview of Green Tea: History to Health Benefits

By John Jernstad, Alex Park, and Justin Joe, Ph.D.

Although it appears that the practice of steeping leaves in water to drink is a millennia-old practice, no one is sure where tea originated from. Some scholars believe that tea came from the jungles of Assam province in India, while others claim that tea originated from southern China. There are anecdotal stories of tea being drunk as far back as the 2700s BC. A more recent work, “The Tea Classic”, was written in 780 AD by Lu Yu, a Buddhist scholar who wrote about tea and its preparation in three volumes.

From China tea spread to other parts of Asia including Japan and Korea, where unique tea drinking cultures developed. Tea was introduced into Japan by envoys from China in 727 AD, and a unique tea ceremony developed over the next several centuries. Japan is unique in its tea history in that traditionally green tea has been the sole tea cultivated and drunk in Japan. In Korea, tea is believed to have reached the Gaya Kingdom around 48 AD, and it is thought that monks returning from their studies in China began to spread the practice of tea drinking. King Heungdeok, who ruled from 826 to 836, is reported to have planted tea seeds on Jiri Mountain, where tea cultivation is still concentrated in the nearby Boseong region in South Korea. Read more…

Category: Green Tea
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Green Tea & Our Blood

1. About Blood
Components of Blood

  • Blood takes up 1/12th of body weight (about 8%). In other words, an average male weighing 70 kg (150 lbs.) carries about 6 kg (13 lbs.) of blood.  In volume, an average person carries about 5L (1.3 gallons) of blood.
  • People are most familiar with the three major cells in blood: red blood cells, white blood cell and platelets. Each component plays a significant role in the human body, but one must understand that the other half of blood (55%) is composed of plasma.
  • 92% of plasma is made up of water mixed with a number of important substances and nutrients such as hormones, immunoglobulins, lipoproteins, mineral ions, and gases. Plasma is responsible for carrying these substances with other blood cells to different parts of the body Read more…

Category: Green Tea