You might want to consider replacing your Green Eggs and Ham with Green Tea and Ham the next time you break your fast in the morning - or any other time, for that matter. It appears that a green tea diet may hold at least a few properties of those golden elixirs, fountains of youth, and magic potions we've all heard about over the years.

Green tea is recommended for the diet aid mainly because of its multifaceted effects on health. The major active component that attributes the properties to the green tea are the polyphenols such as catechin, epicatechin, epicatechin gallate, gallaogatechin, epigallocatechin, and apigallocatechin gallate (known as EGCG).

Green tea diet - Medical Claims

In Thailand, India, Japan and China, green tea has been used as a medicine for a variety of conditions from helping with digestion to healing wounds.

But while many in the medical field proclaim the wonders of this much talked about tea, others are quick to point out that there is little or no evidence to support at least some of the claims.

Green Tea Diet Oprah

You may have heard about the now famous episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show, where Dr. Nicholas Perricone informed an amazed audience that viewers could lose 10 pounds in 6 weeks by drinking green tea instead of coffee.

Demonstrating the power of television and perhaps Oprah Winfrey's celebrity, this episode did a lot to set the popularity of the green tea diet in motion here in the United States.

But way before Dr. Perricone was trumpeting the weight loss potential of green tea on national television, a priest by the name of Eisai rote the 1191 best seller, "The Book of Tea" where drinking green tea was credited with being good for the heart and several other major body organs.

While it's certainly true that Americans are quick to jump on the band wagon when it comes to fads and super quick when it comes to the latest diet, there is something very different when it comes to the subject of green tea.

This diet started around 5,000 years ago in the far eastern part of the world.

The Green Tea Diet (while perhaps not in the form of an actual, planned diet) is a regular part of everyday life in China, Japan, the Middle East, Pakistan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Morocco just to name a few. In many places it's a daily ritual.

Here in the United States a number of studies have reported positive effects when it comes to this tea.

A study by Case Western University School of Medicine said that antioxidants in green tea may prevent and reduce the severity of rheumatoid arthritis.

The Journal of the American College of Surgeons said green tea may prevent the oxidation of the bad cholesterol LDL, which can reduce the build-up of arterial plaque.

There was even a study in Germany that found an extract of green tea combined with filtered hot water could be applied externally to help people whose skin had been damaged by radiation therapy.

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