Tea is one of the common items in our daily lives. It is not only an essential beverage for refreshing and invigorating the mind, but maintaining a good habit of drinking tea is also an effective method to help detoxify the body. At the same time, if tea leaves are used appropriately, they can be a great helper in preventing diseases.
According to modern scientific analysis and identification, tea contains over 450 chemical components beneficial to the human body, such as chlorophyll, vitamins, lipids, caffeine, tea polyphenols, lipopolysaccharides, proteins and amino acids, carbohydrates, minerals, etc., all of which have good nutritional value and pharmacological effects on the human body.
1. Counteracting Poisoning
If one accidentally ingests toxic substances such as silver, aluminum, digitalis, quinine, iron, lead, zinc, cobalt, copper, strychnine, or other metal salts or alkaloids, drinking strong tea can cause the tannic acid in the tea to combine with the toxins, forming a precipitate and delaying the absorption of the poison, aiding in emergency treatment.
2. Treating Bacillary Dysentery
Drinking strong tea has shown significant therapeutic effects for both acute and chronic bacillary dysentery. Pharmacological studies indicate that concentrated tea decoctions have obvious antibacterial effects against dysentery bacilli.
3. Treating Acute Enteritis
For abdominal pain and diarrhea caused by unclean food, brew a cup of strong tea and drink it. If diarrhea persists, boil 15 grams of tea leaves in water and take it twice for effective results.
4. Relieving Biliary Colic
When a gallstone patient experiences an acute attack of biliary colic, drinking a cup of strong tea can help. The theophylline in tea relaxes the smooth muscles of the bile duct, temporarily alleviating severe pain in the biliary area, after which immediate medical attention should be sought.
5. Treating Herpes Zoster
Brew a cup of strong tea, let it cool, then dip fine tea powder in it and apply to the affected area three times a day continuously.
6. Preventing Dental Caries
While drinking tea, hold the tea in your mouth for a moment to let it bathe the teeth. Doing this over ten times a day can effectively prevent dental caries.
7. Delaying Aging
Tea polyphenols have strong antioxidant and physiological activities and are scavengers of free radicals in the human body. Research has shown that 1 mg of tea polyphenols is as effective in scavenging harmful excess free radicals as 9 μg of superoxide dismutase (SOD), far surpassing other similar substances. Tea polyphenols can block lipid peroxidation and清除 active enzymes. According to tests by Japan's Okuda Takuo, the anti-aging effect of tea polyphenols is 18 times stronger than that of vitamin E.
8. Helping to Inhibit Cardiovascular Diseases
Tea polyphenols play an important role in human fat metabolism. High levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, etc., fat deposition on the inner walls of blood vessels, and the proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells forming atherosclerotic plaques are all factors in cardiovascular diseases. Tea polyphenols, especially catechins like ECG and EGC and their oxidation products such as theaflavins, help inhibit such plaque proliferation, reduce fibrinogen which increases blood coagulation viscosity, and thin the blood, thereby inhibiting atherosclerosis.
9. Helping to Prevent and Combat Cancer
Tea polyphenols can block the synthesis of various carcinogens like nitrosamines in the body and have the effect of directly killing cancer cells and improving the body's immune capacity. According to relevant data, tea polyphenols (mainly catechin compounds) in tea are beneficial for preventing and辅助 treating various cancers such as gastric and intestinal cancer.