Green Tea Essay, Research Paper

Green tea and black tea have recently been the topic of many scientific articles and experiments. There have been many findings in the past several years that link tea with the prevention or decrease in many diseases and cancers. For my critical review, I chose to delve into the subject of the benefits of black, green and oolong (red) tea. The New York Times article I am using claims that these teas help prevent against plaque buildup and many types of cancers including skin, lung, esophagus, stomach, liver, small intestine, pancreas, colon, bladder, prostate and breast cancers.

The author of the article is Jane Brodey. I could not find anywhere if she was a “qualified” person to be writing on the health benefits of tea. She did, however present comparable views to the scientific journals. She also presented the material she had in a intelligible manner. The material was very outlined and was written good. The article was not very long, but it is very apparent that she did not just sit down and write this article in an hour. She did significant research and examinations, from what I can tell. Ms. Brody also cited two journals, The New England Journal of Medicine and The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, in her report. She also referred to many experiments throughout the article. Most all of the statements made by Brody are supported by the scientific journal articles I read. The exception is the article published in “Consumer Reports: On Health”. The writer of this article, who is anonymous, says that although the chemicals, specifically polyphenols, have been linked to prevent and suppress many diseases, there was no scientific evidence that you can achieve the same results by simply drinking tea. The problem with this article is that it was published in December of 1996, before a majority of the experiments took place. The two articles do agree, however, that drinking a lot of tea can reduce the risk of developing esophageal cancer. They also agree that tea is very beneficial in animal tests by preventing the formation of tumors, shrinking or stabilizing tumors and by helping to prevent these tumors from spreading. The other two articles I read “Anti-oxidant Potential of Green and Black Tea Determined Using the Ferric Reducing Power Assay” by Langley-Evans and “Tea Polyphenols: Preventing Cancer and Optimizing Health” by Mukhtar and Ahmad help to dispel the inconsistencies presented in the Consumer Report s article. First of all, these two articles are more recent and secondly, these articles were published in more prestigious journals. These two articles help to confirm the proposed benefits presented in the New York Times article. They coincide on the fact that tea inhibits enzymes that promote the growth of cancer, fight DNA damage from oxidation, prevent free nitrogen radicals from turning to cancer, neutralize activated chemicals and opposes the tumor promoting enzymes. These reports also say that the polyphenols help to prevent arteriosclerosis, coronary heart disease, high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure.