Green Tea Caffeine
Green tea has gained in popularity as an ideal health drink as its various health giving and medicinal properties have been unveiled in a systematic, scientific manner over the past two decades. Well known are its anti-cancer properties and its positive effects on the heart and circulatory system. Amongst this plethora of beneficial effects of green tea, a cause for concern, albeit insignificant, has been its caffeine content.
Caffeine is an alkaloid found in beverages like tea and coffee. Since intake of high amounts of caffeine has been associated with ill effects on health, it becomes important to evaluate the caffeine content of green tea. The amount of caffeine in a typical cup of green tea can range from as little as six milligrams to much larger values, upto about eighty milligrams. But most varieties of green tea contain less than twenty five milligrams of caffeine per cup. Compared with coffee which has an average caffeine content of sixty milligrams per cup, green tea contains significantly less amounts of caffeine.
Prior to evaluating whether the caffeine content of green teas can have a harmful effect on the body, it is wise to ask how caffeine works to cause adverse effects. Caffeine has been known to cause inconsequential cases of upset stomach, headache, and irritability, especially in those known to have intolerance to caffeine. However, these ill effects manifest, usually, only when the caffeine intake levels are high, i.e. more than three hundred milligrams a day.
As far as green tea is concerned, its caffeine content is unlikely to cause negative health effects owing to two reasons. Firstly, the amount of caffeine is green tea is comparatively low to cause any serious health problems. Secondly, in addition to caffeine (and a host of other chemical compounds!), green tea contains a class of molecules known as tannins, that exert a relaxing effect on the body. Caffeine, acting in conjunction with tannins, can actually produce a beneficial effect on the body by gently stimulating circulation and thereby increasing alertness. Also, owing to the presence of tannins, caffeine from green tea is absorbed at a slow and stable pace into the blood. Therefore, the typical ‘caffeine shock’ that one might experience after drinking strong coffee (causing levels of caffeine in the blood to shoot up abruptly) is usually not effected by green tea consumption.
Moreover, green tea also contains L-theanine, which acts to counter the biological effects of caffeine. Also, it is possible to reduce the levels of caffeine in your cup of green tea by following certain simple brewing methods like steeping the tea in hot water for a short period of time.
Thus, it can safely be stated that the caffeine in green tea does not induce any serious harmful health effects on the drinker. On the contrary, at the moderate levels of green tea consumption, at which most of us indulge in, caffeine in conjunction with other molecules in the tea, actually exerts a beneficial effect on us by gently increasing our alertness, while at the same time relaxing our body!
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