Does the caffeine in green tea raise your blood pressure?
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Wow, that's actually a topic of MUCH debate in the coffe and tea community. I'm getting ready to open a tea bar for Whole Foods Market and have spent the last several months immersing myself in the tea world. It seems that several new studies are suggesting that natural caffeine from coffee and tea does not raise your blood pressure. It's the synthetic caffeine that is in soda, energy drinks, diet pills, etc. that raises blood pressure. The study mentioned that they weren't sure what the distinguishing factor was between natural and synthetic caffeine was, but it was a noticeable trend. However, even the synthetic caffeine only notably raised blood pressure for a short time (1-2 hours).
Hope this helps!
Cheers!
Yes. Caffeine constricts blood vessels, which leads to higher blood pressure. This is short term, and will go away as the caffeine is metablolized. As far as caffeine causing blood pressure to rise over the long term, that is still unclear. And as for the caffeine in coffee and tea somehow being not as bad for you as the caffeine in soda and energy drinks, that's b.s. Caffeine is caffeine no matter where it is found. In fact, much of the caffeine in soda and energy drinks is caffeine that has been extracted from coffee beans in the process or making decaf coffee, and is then sold to the soda makers. Of course, if you want caffeine, coffee and tea are much better sources than soda, since they contain other helpful molecules (antioxidants etc.), and aren't loaded with sugar
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