Striving4Zen

All teas need to be freshly steeped to receive the most benefits. Also, the steeping process itself is very important, and different steeping methods have been compared in research studies investigating the health benefits of green tea.

Much of the research on green tea has focused on its polyphenol content. Many different kinds of polyphenols are found in green tea, and these polyphenols will become increasingly present in the tea water the longer a tea is steeped. (This principle holds true for green tea, white tea, black tea, and oolong tea.) Catechins, theaflavins, and thearubigins are among the best studied of the green tea polyphenols that are known to increase in the tea water as steeping times increase.

Given an equal amount of steeping time, loose leaf teas do a better job of passing on their polyphenol content than bagged teas because loose leaf teas expose their whole leaves to the steeping water during the entire steeping time. Bagged teas, by contrast, may float on top of the steeping water and expose less of the tea leaves directly to the water. (You can improve this situation by allowing the tea bag to bob down into the water from time to time during the steeping process.)

When you brew tea yourself, you can control this steeping process in a way that will maximize the polyphenol content of your tea. When you buy a bottled tea, however, you may or may not get a tea that has been carefully brewed. In addition, you are likely to get a tea that includes other ingredients and is not simply 100% brewed tea.

In 2005, the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University issued a report showing that many bottled teas contained polyphenol content 10 to 100 times lower than freshly and carefully brewed teas. Differences between bottled tea and freshly brewed tea were attributed to steeping process, amount of actual tea found in the bottled products, and presence of non-tea ingredients in the bottled teas, including sugar. In addition, bottled tea companies were sometimes found to use powdered rather than brewed tea in their products.

If you do choose to make bottled tea a regular part of your diet, be sure to find a manufacturer who produces a high-quality bottled beverage. You can find unsweetened, organic green teas in bottled form in some natural foods stores and on the Internet; these teas will provide you with health benefits closer to those offered by freshly and carefully steeped tea.

Source

Labels: bagged tea, bottled tea, catechins, drinks, green tea, healthy beverage, loose leaf tea, polyphenols, steeping tea, tea

White, green and black tea all come from the same plant (Camellia sinensis), but white tea is made from the unopened leaf buds of the plant, whereas green tea is made from the more mature, opened leaves. (Black tea is also made from mature, opened leaves, but undergoes a controlled fermentation process that results in its darker color.)

Both white and green tea contain a phytonutrient that has been high up on the radar screen in health research. This phytonutrient is a polyphenol called epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). EGCG is the primary polyphenol in both white and green tea, and it's a key reason why researchers have been interested in the properties of white tea with respect to prevention of cancer development (tumorigenesis). At this point we only have preliminary animal studies and in vivo laboratory studies in this area. These studies not only fail to look at everyday intake of white tea as part of a daily diet but also often involve specialized extracts made from white tea.

White tea is not necessarily "better" or "worse" for you than green tea. Both teas have health benefits as they are different in their composition.

As always, quality is important when you are purchasing white or green tea, consider organic teas as they are produced by companies that have a reputation for high standards.

Source

Labels: cancer, EGCG, green tea, healthy diet, polyphenols, tea, white tea

With Beauty In Toxins Out Natural Beauty Collection, his new body care collection, Manhattan-based physician Dennis Gross is making a move few other clinical dermatologists do: heading into natural products.

“We felt that pursuing natural ingredients as antidotes to environmental aggressors made sense,” said Gross, who along with wife Carrie Gross, the firm’s president and CEO, runs the brand. “Our reality is that skin is bombarded daily with environmental pollutants and impurities of all types. We’d like to help reverse the damage done by these pollutants without adding more unnecessary chemicals to the mix.”

The line, which is vegan-friendly and free of parabens, sodium lauryl sulfate, petroleum, mineral oil and paraffin, replaces harsher ingredients with those found in nature, said Dennis Gross. “There are a number of natural alternatives to these chemicals,” he said. “For instance, we’ve used blueberry seed for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, papaya as a gentle exfoliator and tea tree oil for its healing properties.”

The line includes five products. Antioxidant Enzyme Buff with Berry Seeds and Dead Sea Salt, $57 for 14.1 oz., uses cranberry seed for its polyphenols, blueberry seed for its anti-inflammatory properties and kelp for its iodine and amino acid content. Creamy Cleansing Polish with Jojoba Beads, $38 for 6.7 oz., is intended to exfoliate and moisturize skin with a cocktail of pomegranate, papaya, kelp and sweet almond oil, with tetrasodium EDTA as a chelating agent to prevent minerals from bonding to any of the other ingredients. Hydrating Body Emulsion with Aloe, $36 for 6.7 oz., uses sweet almond, jojoba seed, evening primrose, ylang-ylang and lavender oils with grape-seed extract and aloe leaf juice to moisturize, soften and soothe the skin.

Full article

Labels: blueberries, Dr. Dennis Gross, MD Skincare, natural products, new product, paraben-free, polyphenols, skin care

The cacao bean, from which chocolate is made, is devilishly complex, containing more than 400 chemicals. Many of them can affect human biology and health. Whether chocolate is good or bad for you depends largely on the type of chocolate and the amount you consume.

Fats. About a third of the fat in cocoa butter is oleic acid, the very same monounsaturated fat that gives olive oil its good name. Another third is stearic acid; it is a saturated fat, but unlike the three other saturated fats in the human diet, stearic acid does not raise cholesterol levels because the body can metabolize it to oleic acid. And while chocolate also contains some palmitic acid, a saturated fat that does boost cholesterol, careful studies show that eating chocolate does not raise blood cholesterol levels.

Flavonoids. The humble cacao bean contains a number of chemicals in the flavonoid family. Polyphenols protect chocolate from turning rancid, even without refrigeration. Even more important are the flavanols, a group of chemicals that are responsible for many of the protective actions of chocolate. Flavanols are present in many healthful foods—like apples, cherries, and black tea—but dark chocolate is the richest source.

Amino acids. Chocolate is high in tryptophan, phenylalanine, and tyrosine. Like other amino acids, these nitrogen-rich compounds are the building blocks of all the body’s proteins. But two of these amino acids have a unique property: they are precursors of adrenaline, a “stress hormone,” and dopamine, a neurotransmitter that relays signals between nerve cells in the brain. Scientists postulate that dopamine induces feelings of pleasure. But these chemicals may also explain some of the adverse effects of chocolate, including its ability to trigger headaches in some migraine sufferers, its ability to raise blood pressure to dangerous levels in some patients taking monoamine oxidase inhibitors for depression, and its ability to instigate diarrhea, wheezing, and flushing in patients with carcinoid tumors, which are rare.

Methylxanthine. Chocolate contains two members of this group of chemicals. One is obscure, the other notorious — but both theobromine and caffeine have similar effects on the body. They may explain why chocolate makes some hearts beat faster — and why it gives many people heartburn by relaxing the muscle between the stomach and the esophagus, thus allowing acid to reflux up from the stomach into the sensitive “food pipe.”

From lab to life

International experiments show that dark chocolate has an impressive array of activities: it is an antioxidant that may improve your cholesterol; it improves endothelial function and may lower your blood pressure; it is a sweet that may lower your blood sugar; and its antiplatelet activities could reduce your chances of developing an artery-blocking clot. Taken together, these properties could reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke. But all of these hopeful results are based on short-term experiments in a small number of volunteers. Do these bits and pieces of data apply to real life? Perhaps.

Research suggests that chocolate may indeed have a role in promoting vascular health, but the devil is in the details. The first consideration is the type of chocolate. Dark chocolate appears beneficial, but milk chocolate, white chocolate, and other varieties do not. The second issue is calories. Most trials have used 100 grams of dark chocolate, the equivalent of eating about one-and-a-half chocolate bars of typical size. If you ate that much every day, you’d pack in more than 500 extra calories, enough to gain a pound a week.

If you’re a chocolate lover, choose dark chocolate; the first listed ingredient should be cocoa or chocolate liquor, not sugar. Limit yourself to a few ounces a day, and cut calories elsewhere to keep your weight in line.

For more information about how food affects your health, order Special Health Report, Healthy Eating: A guide to the new nutrition, at www.health.harvard.edu/HE.

Source

Labels: chocolate, cocoa, dark chocolate, flavonols, healthy food, oleic acid, polyphenols

Five things about red wine:

Antioxidants in red wine called flavonoids have been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease by lowering LDL (bad cholesterol) levels and increasing the production of good cholesterol.

According to researchers at the University of California, Davis, certain varietals have more concentrations of flavonoids than others. Of the most common red varietals, Cabernet Savignon has the most flavonoids, followed closely by Petit Syrah and Pinot Noir, then Merlot and red Zinfandel.

Moderate consumption of red wine has been known to raise heart healthy omega-3 levels, and these fatty acids play a role in reducing the risk of heart disease.

Resveratrol, another antioxidant found in red wine, could keep you slim.

Polyphenols, also found in tea, nuts, berries and cocoa, may decrease the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

Source

Labels: antioxidant, beverages, healthy booze, heart disease, Omega-3s, polyphenols, red wine, wine

• Anthocyanins: Responsible for the red, purple and blue pigments of many fruits and vegetables, more than 300 structurally distinct anthocyanins have been identified, according to information from the Linus Pauling Institute. Studies suggest anthocyanins have particular benefits to microcirculation, diabetes prevention and vision improvement. In particular, the anthocyanins found in blueberries, black currant and bilberry have shown efficacy in preventing oxidative damage in the eye and enhancing visual function.
• Catechins: Best known as the polyphenols found in tea, this class includes catechin, gallocatechin, epicatechin, epigallocatechin, epicatechin 3-gallate and epigallocatechin 3-gallate (EGCG). They have been studied for a wide range of health benefits including cancer prevention, insulin resistance, cardiovascular health, and weight management.
• Ellagic acid: Found in many plant foods including raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, pomegranates and some nuts, ellagic acid is a non-flavonoid polyphenol. The American Cancer Society has noted ellagic acid acts as an antioxidant, and has some anti-cancer properties. Researchers suggest its effects may be due to antioxidant activity as well as induction of apoptosis.
• Flavanones/Flavones: Primarily found in citrus fruit, the major dietary flavanones are hesperetin, naringenin and eriodictyol, while the flavones include luteolin and apigenin. These compounds exert antioxidant, anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory activities. In addition, the flavanones, and their aglycone derivatives, particularly address blood lipid levels and may help lower levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.
• Flavonols: The major dietary aglycone flavonols include quercetin, kaempferol, myricetin and isorhamnetin, found in fruits and vegetables such as onions, apples, kale and broccoli.
• Isoflavones: Primarily found in soy, isoflavones are considered a phytoestrogen (plant-based compound similar to the body’s hormone), and have been studied for their anti-cancer ability, particularly in relation to breast cancer. They may also beneficially influence cardiovascular health. The major isoflavones include daidzein and genistein.

Source

Labels: anthocyanins, catechins, ellagic acid, flavonoids, healthy diet, polyphenols, soy isoflavones

Try something different. Add a little lychee to your fruit salad. Not only will it add an exotic tickle for your taste buds, but it will tickle your ticker, too.

When scientists recently measured the heart-helping polyphenol content of fruits popular in France, lychees were bested only by strawberries. Grapes came in third.

The Top 10

Who would have thought lychees -- cultivated in China -- would become a fave fruit in France? But the top polyphenol-spiked fruits there, in order, are:
strawberries, lychees, grapes, apricots, apples, dates, cherries, figs, pears, and white nectarines.

(Here’s how polyphenols help prevent heart disease.) The small, heart-shaped red fruit is now going global and making an appearance in U.S. markets, too, especially during the summer.

Two More for Your Ticker

In addition to impressive amounts of polyphenols, lychees also have heart-smart vitamin C and potassium. (Find out what this mighty mineral does for your blood pressure.)

SOURCE

Labels: citrus fruits, eating healthy, heart healthy, lychee, polyphenols, strawberries, superfoods