Being a frequent Green Tea drinker, this news definitely made me a happy man! Ever since I've known the health benefits of Green Tea, I've developed a habit of drinking 3~5 cups of Green Tea daily.

I happened to stumble across this article a few years after my drinking habit has developed, tea drinking habit that is.

Studies have shown that Green tea enhances glucose metabolism in human subjects when given 1.5g of green tea powder. Not only that, it also lowers blood glucose levels in mice. However it seems like larger doses of green tea is required to achieve the latter effect.

This anti-hyperglycemic effect is speculated to have been caused by a decreased in a serum protein, 4211(4212) Da(yes this is a protein name)(1).

I strongly recommend diabetics to drink Green tea regularly, if you haven't done so. The health benefits and glycemic benefits is far too much to be missed.

Green tea powder is just green tea that has been grinded up into fine powder, it's not the same as green tea extract. Green tea extract would have been more potent. One thing to note that if you're using tea bag, you're only taking in the soluble compound that leaks out to the water from tea bags. Usually the tea bags come in 2grams forms, so I would probably recommend 2 tea bags at the very least to reap the benefits.


Reference
1. Effect of green tea on blood glucose levels and serum proteomic patterns in diabetic (db/db) mice and on glucose metabolism in healthy humans
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=517497 Retrieved 25/5/09