The Drink That Keeps You Agile as You Age

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Green Tea Keeps You Agile as You AgeEveryone wants to maintain their independence as they age. Being confined to home and having to rely on others to get about or perform simple tasks like bathing or dressing is difficult. But how do you go about ensuring your independence when disease and illness threaten to take it away from you?

Here’s a simple solution in the form of a healing food: green tea. Green tea has been touted for its anti-cancer properties. Recently, researchers at the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan built a clinical trial around the premise that green tea consumption is associated with a lower risk of diseases that cause disability, such as stroke, cognitive impairment, and osteoporosis.

The study was a large one and included 13,988 Japanese individuals aged 65 years and older. Information on daily green tea consumption and other lifestyle factors was collected via questionnaires in 2006. Data on functional disability were retrieved from the public Long-term Care Insurance database, in which the participants were followed up for three years. The research team then investigated the association between green tea consumption and functional disability.

They found that almost 13% of adults who drank less than a cup of green tea per day became functionally disabled. In comparison, just over seven percent of people who drank at least five cups per day became disabled. To look at the statistics in another way, people who drank at least five cups a day were one-third less likely to develop disabilities than those who had less than a cup a day. People who averaged three or four cups a day had a 25% lower risk.

It could be green tea’s antioxidants that account for its beneficial effects. In particular, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) may play a big role in reducing the inflammation associated with everything from strokes to Alzheimer’s to arthritis. The researchers caution that green tea drinkers are also more likely to eat a healthy diet, including fish, vegetables and fruit. Combined with no smoking, this healthier diet and green tea drinking seems the way to go to lower your risk for disability.

Read the article Even More Benefits Found in Green Tea for a deeper look into this great natural health drink.