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Dear Health Conscious Friend,
Now there’s a strategy you can use to extend your life…one cup at a time.
Imagine if you could extend your life by five years just by drinking tea. Would you do it?
When a large group of elderly Chinese men drank three cups or more of Oolong tea each day, they recorded significantly longer telomere lengths – nearly five years of added lifespan – compared with those who drank one cup or less.
The study, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, largely applies to the subjects who were drinking Oolong tea.
Our ancestors have long touted the health benefits of tea, but never at the DNA level. Now we’re learning new ways where you may help maintain the length of your telomeres and increase your lifespan. That’s good news for tea drinkers and great news for fans of life extension.
You’ve heard me talk about telomeres – the “time keepers” that cap each strand of DNA. Each time your cells divide, your telomeres get shorter. And telomere length is a key indicator of your overall health and lifespan.
By lengthening your telomeres, you can extend your life. And that means for the first time, you can actually stop – even reverse – the aging process in your body.
Here’s the thing: Your telomeres are extremely vulnerable to oxidative stress … and that’s exactly what antioxidants protect you against. This helps keep your telomeres long. And that, in turn, will help you live a longer and healthier life. That’s where the healing powers of tea come in. The antioxidant properties of tea may be responsible for protecting the telomeres.
Oolong tea packs a powerful punch of antioxidants and phytonutrients that eradicates free radicals floating in your body. These are the primary culprits in aging.
The active ingredient in green tea is EGCG, which can prevent and repair cell damage. As a scavenger of free radicals, EGCG combats the effects of pollution, sunlight and smoking, which helps skin from wrinkling and aging.
Most of the bottled green tea drinks contain additives like aspartame that counteract brewed green tea’s healing properties. I suggest you make your own to maximize the powerful, antioxidant-fighting benefits. You can also find ECGC supplements at your local health food store. I suggest taking 50 mg of ECGC daily.
The best way to receive the benefits abundant in Oolong tea – including the EGCG – is to use whole organic tea leaves.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD