Green Tea: Not so Hot

From losing weight and fighting cancer to cleaning hard-disk drives, the benefits of green tea are many. But according to the FDA, you can now cross heart benefits off the list, CNN reports.

After looking into claims that green tea fights cardiovascular disease (CVD), the FDA concluded that, "there is no credible evidence to support qualified health claims for green tea or green tea extract and a reduction of a number of risk factors associated with CVD."

CNN also reports the FDA has yet to back claims that green tea helps to prevent cancer.

Green tea is rich in antioxidants called catechins, which are thought to help prevent cancer. In animals, it works. But studies have yet to replicate the effect on humans. At best, results in humans are "contradictory," reads the National Cancer Institute "Tea and Cancer Prevention Fact Sheet."

So should you give up on green tea? Well, there are a lot of studies from reputable sources out there showing promise for green tea in fighting cancer. And green coffee and tea (yes, there is such a thing as green coffee that is made from unroasted coffee beans) is believed to boost metabolism and promote weight loss.

What we can say for sure is that green tea is a very complex mixture full of all kinds of different compounds. Not only that, there are many different types of green tea made using different processes. In some combination, with certain lifestyles and diets, it's probably just a matter of time before science nails down the best way to unlock green tea's potential.

On an interesting side note, did you know that green, black, oolong and white tea all come from the same plant? What makes them different is the processing of the leaf.