Let’s talk about the health benefits of green tea before we talk about the caffeine in it. Green tea is a popular beverage that has many health benefits.
- Let’s talk about the health benefits of green tea before we talk about the caffeine in it. Green tea is a popular beverage that has many health benefits.
- What is Caffeine?
- Benefits of Caffeine In Green Tea
- Caffeine in Green Tea
- How Many Cups of Green Tea You Can Drink Per Day?
- Is It Something to Worry About?
- Caffeine Side Effects in Green Tea
Before we get to know about green tea caffeine, we must first mention some of the health benefits of green tea. Green tea is a popular drink that has many health benefits. In fact, some studies have shown that consuming green tea improves brain function, aging, and can also reduce the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.
Green tea, just like regular tea, contains caffeine, and this can be a concern for people who want to limit their caffeine intake, and if they are sensitive to it. So, first, let’s have a look at the benefits of green tea.
What is Caffeine?
Caffeine is a naturally occurring chemical found in beans, fruits, and plants. It is a central nervous system stimulant that promotes alertness and fights fatigue. It works by blocking the effects of a neurotransmitter called adenosine, which makes you feel tired.
Caffeine has many health benefits, such as improving mood, increasing metabolism, and improving exercise performance. However, some people may be more sensitive to the effects of caffeine and may experience insomnia and trouble sleeping.
The amount of caffeine in green tea depends on the growing conditions of the tea plants and how they are processed.
Green tea contains the lowest caffeine content than other drinks such as black tea and coffee.
The amount of caffeine in one cup of green tea ranges from 30 to 50 mg, while the caffeine content in coffee is 200 mg, while the caffeine in black tea reaches 110 mg. As we can see, The caffeine content in green tea is much lower than that of other drinks.
It is worth noting that green tea also contains theanine and amino acids, which have been shown to be associated with caffeine, and that combining them in one drink helps focus. This may make green tea help focus more than coffee.
Benefits of Caffeine In Green Tea
There are many potential benefits of caffeine in green tea. Here are the most important of these benefits:
- Weight loss: Caffeine helps curb appetite and produce more energy to digest food.
- Brain Stimulation: Caffeine helps increase focus, alertness, and speed of remembering, though be sure to get enough sleep.
- Improve brain function: It may enhance thinking skills, and delay mental decline that occurs due to age because it contains polyphenol antioxidants.
- Improving sports performance: by increasing the endurance of exercise, and reducing the effort expended in its performance.
- Prevention of some neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
- Liver protection: May reduce the risk of cirrhosis and help prevent hepatitis C infection.
- Prevention of some eye diseases, such as cataracts and blepharospasm.
- Reduces the risk of many cancers, such as skin cancer, mouth cancer, Endometrial cancer, Prostate cancer, Neck, and head cancer.
Benefits of Green Tea for Diabetics
Green tea may help improve the condition of people with type 2 diabetes. A study indicated that green tea may contribute to reducing insulin resistance in patients with diabetes.
Benefits of Green Tea for The Urinary Tract
Green tea may help relieve UTIs. Studies have shown that green tea extract inhibits the growth of strains of Escherichia coli, which cause 80% to 90% of UTIs. This is in addition to the presence of one of the tea combinations known as Epigallocatechin in the urine in high concentrations, which indicates that green tea has an antimicrobial effect.
Caffeine in Green Tea
One cup of green tea which is equal to (230 ml) contains 35 mg of caffeine, but this amount can be affected by many factors, such as:
- Green tea growing conditions, processing, and fermentation processes.
- Aged leaves. Younger leaves have higher caffeine content.
- Packing method, where the amount of caffeine in powdered or bagged tea is greater than in loose tea.
- Preparation time: The amount of caffeine increases the longer it is heated.
- For these reasons, the amount of caffeine in a cup of green tea may range between 30-50 mg. But in general, green tea contains less caffeine than other common drinks, such as black tea, energy drinks, and soft drinks.
As well as Brewed coffee also contains twice as much caffeine as green tea.
How Many Cups of Green Tea You Can Drink Per Day?
You can drink a maximum of 400 mg of caffeine daily, equal to 8 cups of green tea.
Despite this, We don’t recommend you to consume this amount. Especially if you are one of those who are sensitive to caffeine. So, if you have any health issues mentioned below, avoid consuming excess caffeine in your day:
- Sleep disturbances or psychological anxiety.
- Gastroesophageal reflux disease or esophageal ulcers.
- High blood pressure.
- Migraines or chronic headaches.
- Irregular heartbeat.
- Pregnant and lactating women.
- Children and teens.
- If you take medicines that interfere with caffeine, such as asthma medicines and heart medicines.
Is It Something to Worry About?
When you consume the recommended amount of caffeine, it is considered very safe. For adults over 19 years of age, the safe limit is about 400 mg of caffeine per day, or 13 mg per pound, or 6 mg per kg of body weight. However, to prevent the negative effects, you have to limit caffeine to about 200 mg at a time. The caffeine in about four cups of green tea can reach 200 mg, so four cups of green tea are within safe limits, so there is nothing to worry about.
Caffeine Side Effects in Green Tea
The side effects of caffeine appear when excessive consumption of drinks containing it, such as green tea and others, which may lead to the emergence of the following symptoms:
- a heart rhythm disorder.
- Sleep disturbance or insomnia.
- Frequent urination may lead to dehydration.
- Increased acid secretion in the stomach, may cause heartburn.
- Hypertension.
- Feeling anxious.
- Headache.
- Interfering with calcium absorption.
- Getting used to what may prompt you to drink more of it, and the appearance of withdrawal symptoms if you stop drinking it suddenly, such as Irritability, Nausea, Feeling sleepy, Headache, and Difficulty in concentrating.