So is green tea actually good for you well we've looked at the evidence for different health claims
and it's time to see what science has to say about green tea let's begin okay so health claim
number one it's claimed that green tea can help improve your focus and improve your brain function
okay so let's look into this a cup of green tea roughly has about 50 milligrams of caffeine in
a cup of brewed coffee has about 100 milligrams of caffeine in it now 400 milligrams of caffeine
per day is the recommended safe amount of caffeine that means four cups of brewed coffee
or up to eight cups of green tea and research has actually shown that caffeine can help increase
alertness and increase concentration now the great thing about green tea is because it has less
caffeine in it you can have more cups of green tea without getting those jittery side effects
of having too much caffeine which we all know so well from coffee and caffeine isn't the only thing
that's found in green tea that helps with brain function it also has something called l-theanine
inside it and l-theanine also helps with the brain function so together i guess they're both helping
with brain function and the health claim is quite valid so moving on to health claim number two
green tea helps to burn fat and lose weight i hear this one so often from patients and looking at the
studies some studies have actually shown that green tea helps increase metabolism and help you
lose weight and some studies show it has no effect whatsoever on the metabolism or losing weight so
there's conflicting evidence on this now it's also important to note there have been lab models as
well that have shown that green tea reduces the blood flow to fat cells so it's kind of stopping
that blood flow and helping them shrink so you do lose weight but again it's a lab model it hasn't
been shown on humans so it's a very difficult one to actually say that this claim is true or false
there's conflicting evidence we need more evidence on it but we all know if you want to lose weight
there's many different scientifically proven ways to lose weight and i do have a few videos on it so
if you really want to lose weight please go and watch aliba link up here and in the description
below it's full of really useful scientifically proven ways to lose weight now let's move on so
moving on to health claim number three green tea can make you live longer this one is one
that really excites everyone excited me when i first read the article about the headline for it
this is based from a few studies that are done one that comes to mind at the moment is
quite a big one done in japan 40 000 participants and it was found that drinking three to five cups
of green tea every single day can help increase your lifespan decrease your sort of overall risk
of death from different causes and also decrease the risk of death from heart attacks and strokes
as well now i know this sounds great but i really want you to think like a scientist for a few
seconds now so bear with me remember this when you look at different articles and evidence okay
correlation is not always causation so what i mean by that is looking at this study for example
relatively big study 40 000 patients but it was only on japanese population okay
so then we need to think about what else could actually cause this okay
what was the age of the participants what kind of diseases did they have what kind of lifestyle did
they live what was their diet like you know all these factors come into play that actually could
be the cause for this kind of correlation as well so the moral of the story is although
it's good it sounds very good more and more evidence is required to make such a bold claim
now let's go back to the surgery okay so let's move on to health clinic number four green tea
can help with cholesterol and blood pressure there have been some animal studies that suggest that
green tea can help lower bad cholesterol there have also been some human and animal studies
that have also suggested that green tea can help to reduce your blood pressure now whilst
we're on the topic of blood pressure i want to take a quick 30 second break to tell you about a
project of mine i've spent the past two and a half years creating the blood pressure monitor pro app
i'm very proud of it and i would highly recommend anyone with high blood pressure to download it and
here's why so the app firstly monitors your home blood pressure readings so it looks at
percentage changes and trends and tells you what the differences are but secondly it analyzes your
lifestyle and tells you where you need to make improvements to help with your blood pressure
and i really can't recommend the app enough if you have high blood pressure i would really recommend
it my patients a little bit my colleagues love it anyone who's used it has found it really really
helpful if you want to download the app just go on your app store search blood pressure monitor pro
make sure the icon matches i will also leave links to it in the description below there is a one-time
purchase fee of 99 pence 99 99 euro wherever you are in the world there is no other cost there's
no subscription fees nothing like that just a one-time fee now let's carry on with a video
moving on to health claim number five green tea helps to reduce blood sugar levels this is an
interesting one there was a study done by the american journal of clinical nutrition and they
found that green tea drinkers have higher insulin sensitivity and lower blood sugar levels there was
also a really interesting study in japan where they actually found that people who drank green
tea had a 42 percent lower chance of developing type 2 diabetes which is pretty amazing really
okay so moving on to health claim number six there's been a lot of stuff in the media that
people who drink green tea could potentially have lower rates of cancer and research has shown that
this might be due to the high amounts and potent amount of antioxidants that are actually found in
green tea now here's the thing this is a very bold claim to make because like i said earlier
correlation is not always causation there's so many different factors that could come into
account for lower cancer rates okay so please please please always think of it like that
generally speaking basically a lot more evidence is needed to actually support this claim okay so
scientifically speaking we need more evidence on it but there has actually been some really good
evidence on green tea helping to reduce the rates of breast cancer and prostate cancer so definitely
watch this space because there's definitely more evidence can be coming out but these are some
really good findings so guys the moral of the story is with green tea more and more evidence
is needed to really justify a lot of these health claims one thing that we can definitely be certain
of though is drinking green tea in moderation has definitely got no real health risk and there could
be some potential real benefits out there as well always remember you're awesome and i will
see you next week now i want you to remember this causation is not correlation not causation
i'm losing my mind today it's really hot and i'm just losing my mind causation why am i saying it
like that well we've looked at the evidence for different health claims i really do wish there
was some green tea in this this is just a prop i'm really thirsty at the moment and there's this bird
that keeps flying here it's like a little robin i think he really likes me actually they are
quite territorial you've got to be careful with robins you know they're quite territorial but the
weather's really good i was like we're missing out on some filming here let's do it outside