Does Green Tea Lower Blood Sugar and Increase Insulin Activity?
Want to avoid metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes? It is possible to prevent both of these conditions if you take control of your eating habits and exercise. No expensive prescription drugs or complicated exercises are required. It could be as simple as drinking four cups of green tea a day and walking for 30 minutes, four or five times a week.
Metabolic syndrome is probably not on your radar screen, yet one in five people are affected in the U.S. Risk factors include extra weight around the waist, insulin resistance, aging, genes, hormone changes, and lack of exercise, which are all harbingers to both cardiovascular disease and (the focus of this article) type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes is characterized by insufficient secretion or improper functioning of insulin.
Obesity is a primary risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes. It is closely associated with little or no exercise and poor diet choices, and creates conditions in your body such as:
- High blood sugar levels
- Reduced insulin levels and activity
- High blood pressure
- Oxidative stress
- Increase in free radicals that damage cells and DNA (aging process)
- High LDL (bad) cholesterol
- And a host of other damages to the heart, kidneys, liver, and pancreas
How can or does green tea lower blood sugar? Green tea is produced by wilting, steaming, and drying the leaves without fermentation. This process retains the potent antioxidant catechin compounds, unlike the process used for black or oolong tea. It appears these catechins are responsible for green tea’s blood sugar-lowering properties.
I am listing the answer to, does green tea lower blood sugar and increase insulin activity, along with many other health benefits it provides:
- Yes, it lowers blood sugar levels
- Increases insulin activity
- Promotes glucose metabolism in healthy individuals
- Suppresses glucose transfer from the intestine to the blood stream
- Reduces the enzyme amylase that helps convert starch to sugar
- Does not lower the blood sugar levels in a healthy person
- Polysaccharides are also present in the leaves and have the same ability to regulate blood sugar as insulin does
- Could forestall or alleviate the risk of metabolic syndrome, a precursor to type 2 diabetes
- Importantly could control or prevent type 2 diabetes
Does green tea lower blood sugar and increase insulin activity is answered with a resounding yes. There are still a few important facts you should know before you consider drinking this healthful beverage.
- The antioxidant activity of green tea is almost six times that of black
- Caffeine does not help in lowering blood sugar and can have an adverse effect on blood sugar
- Drinking unsweetened decaffeinated green tea might be more beneficial
- Green tea extract pills and nutritional supplements are primarily made from extracts of the decaffeinated leaves.
- Milk in tea does not reduce the increase of insulin activity in humans, but don’t add sugar
- Instant, herbal, and other commercially prepared teas do not show increased insulin activity in studies conducted by the USDA
Does green tea lower blood sugar and increase insulin activity? I have included a lot of supporting information that I hope is helpful and the answer is still yes.
Do yourself a favor and consider the many health benefits to be obtained with regular exercise, a healthful diet, and consumption of the potent green leaf antioxidant compounds.
Think of how much enjoyment there is to be gained by being healthy.
If you try the beverage and don’t care for the taste, try taking a nutritional supplement containing the antioxidant compounds plus many other health benefitting vitamins and nutrients.
To learn more about the supplements my family and I take, please visit my website.
Take a minute to visit now at http://nutritional-vitamin.com/
J. Peter Crane is an advocate of living a better life through better nutrition. Since an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, he’d rather spend money on good food and nutritional supplements than medical bills.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=J_Peter_Crane
Walking Aids in Type 2 Diabetes and Weight Loss
By Jackie Khor
Such approaches are thought to be particularly effective in people with Metabolic Syndrome, a pre-diabetic state involving multiple symptoms including over-weight and central obesity, insulin resistance, elevated blood lipids, elevated blood glucose, and high blood pressure.
We hear a lot from both recent and past studies that if we shift in dietary habits to include low-glycemic functional foods and low-calories meals, and the modest increases in physical activity it could offer a valuable approach for reversing Metabolic Syndrome and preventing Type 2 diabetes and heart disease in at-risk people.
The simplest, cheapest and most effective way to access the benefits associated with a physically active lifestyle and they are many is to walk. No kidding.
For example, you might be able to find a few community projects that encourage people to walk 10,000 steps a day. Of course most people do not know what 10,000 steps are equal to, how long, or how far they should walk. 10,000 steps are roughly equivalent to seven or eight kilometers of walking. That may sound like a long walk, but the idea is not to do it all at once, but rather accumulate it over the course of your entire day. Walk and pick up the paper, walk a bit further from where you park the car, and take as many opportunities as you can during the day to acquire steps. Simply put, be a bit more self-propelled during the day. Depending on your habits, you may or may not need to add some extra walking before or after work to achieve the 10,000-step goal.
The normal person, by the way no one is normal, takes about 100 steps
per minute. If we use this number we can calculate that 10,000 steps will take you one hour and forty minutes to complete. Again this doesn’t have to be done all at once. Instead spread it over the entire day which means that still leaves you with over 22 hours on virtual inactivity!
You can use of a pedometer to keep track of the steps that you complete. These are relatively inexpensive and are available through a number of retailers. The pedometer is an effective means of establishing how much you do, and is a great little tool to start you on the road to increased activity.
One time I saw a movie on television. It started off with a wealthy man hold got into his car, drove down his driveway to the letterbox, picked up the newspaper, got back into the car, and reversed back to the house. This is only one (extreme) example of the poor activity decisions many of us make everyday. Called it the American Paradox, this seemingly conflicting message reflects the drastic decrease in ‘incidental’ physical activity and its effects on the energy balance. There has been a significant decline in the amount of incidental physical activity as opposed to goal-directed exercise that we are required to do, or choose to do, in our daily lives.
Walking is the only sustained aerobic activity that is common in the population today. Getting more people to walk more often will help the health and well being of both the individual and the community. It is estimated that an increase of 4,000 steps per day will equate to a loss of 0.2 kilograms per week for a moderately overweight person. Although this may not seem like a lot, one should remember that if you started that habit this week, within 12 months you would be over 10 kilos lighter!
Note: one kilometer equals 0.62 miles
Source: Jackie Khor
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