The Green Tea plant (Camellia sinensus) is another effective, natural treatment for high blood pressure.
Background: Named after a Jesuit pharmacist who wrote a history of Philippine plants (George Kamel 1661-1706), Camellia sinensus is originally native to China. Indeed, this herb has been a popular Chinese beverage for at least 3000 years. The ritual tea ceremony is believed to have begun during the Chinese Sung Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279) and to have subsequently spread to Japan by the 12th century. (One legend says that tea was discovered accidentally by a Chinese emperor when the dried leaves of a tea plant accidentally fell into a pot of boiling water.)
Description: Camellia sinensus is a small, evergreen shrub with leathery, elliptical leaves two to three inches long. White flowers with yellow stamens are borne during the winter, followed by brown capsules containing large, oily seeds. Most varieties of tea plant only reach five or six feet in height.
Cultivation: Tea plants prefer rich, moist soil in sun or partial shade. In order to simplify their harvest, the bushes are normally pruned to about three feet in height during the autumn. This plant is hardy from Zones 7 to 9 in the United States.
Harvest: Young leaves may be picked throughout the year and used either fresh or dried. Interestingly, there are three main types of tea: black tea (rolled, fermented and dried), oolong tea (semi-fermented), and green tea (heat treated, dried and rolled). The process of fermentation changes the color of tea leaves from green to reddish brown. Green tea is best for lowering blood pressure.
Parts Used: The shoot tips (or apical buds) of young leaves have the greatest flavor, and are the part normally harvested.
Research: Clinical studies have documented a variety of health benefits associated with drinking green tea. One of these benefits is a reduction in high blood pressure. In 1984, an article published in the Journal of Hypertension documented a reduction in social stress (and blood pressure) in mice raised in crowded conditions provided with green tea daily for 5 months. [i] A Taiwanese study in 2004 demonstrated that green tea drinkers significantly reduced their chances of developing hypertension (by 46-65%) as compared to their non-green tea drinking compatriots. [ii] A study published in the Journal of Nutrition in 2008 showed that mice on a high fat diet provided with a daily extract of green tea for 16 weeks had reduced increases in weight gain, body fat, and blood pressure as compared to other mice on the same diet without the green tea extract. [iii] Finally, a 2012 study conducted at the University of Poznan found that obese human subjects provided with a daily green tea extract for 3 months had significantly reduced blood pressure at the end of that time period as compared to another group of test subjects who were given a placebo. [iv]
[i] “Reduction of chronic psychosocial hypertension in mice by decaffeinated tea” Henry, J.P., et al, Hypertension, 1984,6:437-444
[ii] “The protective effect of habitual tea consumption on hypertension” Yang, Y.C. et al, Arch Intern. Med 2004 Jul 26;164(14):1534-40
[iii] “The major green tea polyphenol, (-)-Epigallocatechin-3-Gallate, inhibits obesity, metabolic syndrome, and fatty liver disease in high fat fed mice” Bose, M. et al Journal of Nutrition Sep 2008 Vol 138 No. 9 1677-1683
[iv] “Green tea extract reduces blood pressure, inflammatory biomarkers and oxidative stress and improves parameters associated with insulin resistance in obese, hypertensive patients” Bogdanski, P., et al Nutrition Research, Vol 32, Issue 6, June 2012 P. 421-427
greenmedicineedu 