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Sunday, March 11, 2007

Medicinal Properties of Yerba Mate

Yerba Mate, the hot, new beverage, is said to contain many medicinal properties. It has a long history as a medicinal herb utilised for everything from increasing immunity and purifying the blood to minimizing stress and fighting insomnia. Throughout South America, yerba mate is utilised as a tonic, diuretic, and as a stimulant to reduce fatigue, curb the appetite, and helps with gastric functions. In Brazil, yerba mate is believed to stimulate the nervous and muscular systems and is used for digestive problems, renal colic, nerve pain, depression, fatigue, and obesity.

In addition, Guarani Indians have relied on the beverage for years as a main component of their diet. They believe it is good for boosting immunity, detoxifying the body, lowering blood pressure, toning the nervous system, controlling appetite, curing insomnia, retarding aging, reducing fever.

Some of these claims have now been backed up by scientific research.

In 2005, Researchers at the University of Illinois found yerba mate to be "rich in phenolic constituents" and in addition, was found to "inhibit oral cancer cell proliferation". Another study, published in Mutation Research in 2004, discovered that Yerba mate's antioxidant content, which is similar with green tea's, makes it a potentially powerful preventive against cancer.

An additional study published in June 2001 in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, states that yerba mate also appears to slow digestion and speeds up metabolism, which may aid in weight loss.

Yerba Mate has also been found to be thermogenic, which means that this herb encourages the body to burn calories as evidenced in a study conducted by the University of Lausanne, Switzerland in 1999. The participants of that study showed an increase in the amount of fat their bodies burned for energy.

7 comments:

chelita said...

Mate is great!! I am from Argentina and have been drinking mate all my life.
Now only i came to know that has so many properties for health.
keep on drinking mate!!!

base said...

Hello!
I'm from Poland and I have been drinking yerba mate all my life! i love it!
Take a look polish yerba mate site:
Yerba mate

JLL said...

In addition to the properties you mentioned, yerba mate inhibits the formation of AGEs - that is, the advanced glycation end products formed by cooking.

Ada said...

Heloo everybody..I'm from uruguay and we know that 'yerba mate' is a very good herbal drink..you can also drink it with milk, to the hot water with the 'yerba mate' on it you add milk and you get what we called 'mate cocido' or 'hot milk with mate' is worth to have a try..

Unknown said...

Hello, I could not find contact info. I run www.shadetreemate.com and www.shadetreemate.blogspot.com and I would love to link up our site, and either update your site for you guys or link them up so when people go to this site they get jetted to mine. I am writing all the Mate blogs out there and seeing if we can work together. Thanks so much! Sean Makau
sean@shadetreemate.com

Unknown said...

Visit Fusion Tea Roomfor the best Yerba Mate around. Don't take my word for it, Visit Steepster to check out all the reviews :)

Bruce Conway said...

I accidentally made a cup last night (my first cup).

Now I'm in love.

(I'm drinking some right now).