New Study Says Green Tea Helps Stomach Disorders
Forget about Earl Grey and say no to orange pekoe. If you want your morning beverage to fight stomach disorders, a new study says the color of your cup of tea should be green.
The study of residents of a Chinese island is the first to link green tea to the rate of gastritis, a stomach inflammation that can lead to cancer.
American and Chinese experts studied how much green tea was consumed by 133 stomach cancer patients, 166 patients with colonic gastritis and 433 people with no stomach disease.
They found that people who drank one to three cups of green tea daily had a 30 percent lower rate of stomach cancer. Those who drank more than three cups had a 61 percent lower rate.
The findings are reported in the May International Journal of Cancer.
I thought the Japanese drink a lot of green tea and the prevalence of stomach cancer among the Japanese is among the highest in the world.
I don't know if the Japanese drink a lot of green tea or not. But I have heard they live an extremely stressful life from childhood (at least in big cities), which would account for the prevalence of stomach disorders, including stomach cancer.
Maybe without green tea, the incidence of stomach cancer in Japan would skyrocket to even higher levels.
For sure Japanese people drink alot of green tea, but their diet is also quite special, they eat alot of small shrimps, which is considered the caustive factor to the gastritis they suffer from.
Actually, the incidence of the stomach cancer in Japan is getting lower now, because of the change of their diet.
On the other hand, I also agree with Serpent that Japanese people have been overloaded by too much stress, even from childhood. So they have a good fortune.
Not only stomach cancer, in fact, other stomach disorders are also related with the mental stress, e.g. peptic ulcer.
I don't know the details of the mechanism or the pathogenesis of the stomach disorders in terms of the mental stress, but in traditional Chinese medicine we do think the stagnation of liver Qi would be quite susceptible to the invasion of the stomach dysfunctions.
What do you think about it, pkkkoh and Serpent?
Or the other participants?
I’m always getting pleasure from reading posts of Feathered Serpent, from his “ideas firework”.
I must say that I’m agree with Feathered Serpent and Dr. King that metal stress is an basic cause of cancer. During of the first treatment I’m asking a patient what’s a reason of his disease from his viewpoint? What changed in his life before onset of disease? In each case (!) of cancer (not only stomach cancer) that I treated, before 1 – 1.5 years patient was in severe prolonged mental stress. It can result in weakening of immune system, so other factors (including small shrimps) starting play a vital part. Not without purpose cancer is called “Depression of body”.
As regards the second disorder, peptic ulcer, opinion of Dr. King on the stagnation of liver Qi explain for me the fact that this disorder I observed in cases of patients with hot temper and with superfluity energy in Liver.
As I have found out, about 70% cancer patients or even a little more, have got their cancers because of the mental abnormality, usually it's a kind of anger or frustration, due to the unfair treatment from the work, or from the family, or from the friends, which however cannot be released properly, in a Chinese saying, they have to retain the anger or unhappiness in the mind!
So I would hold that the incidence of cancer is closely related with the liver Qi stagnation. At the moment, in China, there are some physicians or scholars of traditional Chinese medicine would think the same as I. So it is a new concept that liver is the source of all (most of) the diseases, especially the refractory and intractable diseases, such as cancer.
For sure many friends would not agree with me, so all the criticizng comments are welcome.
I easily agree with Sophia and Dr. King, Liver Qi stagnation can be the underlying cause of stomach disorders, including stomach cancer. And stress directly damages the spleen/stomach pair.
However I must admit I was a little surprised about your statement that the Liver may be to blame for most or maybe all cancers.
I don't have enough clinical experience nor have I seen enough cancer cases to say "Oh yeah, Dr. King definitely is right". But, based purely on a TCM theoretical level, I think it's perfectly possible.
A disfunctional Liver can overdo its controlling function over the spleen/stomach, therefore causing a "depression of the body" (as Sophia said) due to a lack of qi and blood production.
The immediate effect would be stomach problems. But, with time, cancers might develop.
I hope my thinking is correct, because your liver idea makes sense to me. I must agree with you. Add green tea to this knowledge and we've got a winning combination!
P.S. Thank you, Sophia, for your comments. I'm glad you like my posts!
Serpent,
Actually even in traditional Chinese medicine, it's also complicated to understand the relations between the liver and stomach, or as I said before, liver could be the sourse of all the diseases (not all the cancers or most of the cansers). We have to understand this point from the view of the Qi flow. When the liver works well, the Qi flows normally, otherwise the flow of Qi would be disturbed, so there should be the stagnation in the body, so there could be masses and lumps, the tumor or cancer.
On the other hand, liver is also responsible to secret the bile, so the bile would be moved to help the digestion. When the liver Qi is stagnated, the bile cannot be well or normally secreted, so the stagnation would be worsened, thus the masses or lumps.
Only the personal opinion, not quite sure the correctness, only for your reference.
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