This isn't about genetics. It's about habits.
Inflammation isn't the enemy. Stuck-on inflammation is.
The obvious kind - a cut, a bug, a hard workout - is your body healing. You want that switch to flip, do its job, and switch off.
The problem is the other kind. Chronic, low-grade inflammation: the switch stuck halfway on, day after day, from poor sleep, stress, an overloaded diet, carrying extra weight. Not an alarm. A background hum. And a response team that never gets the all-clear starts doing its own damage.
Green tea doesn't switch inflammation off. It helps stop it being stuck on.
Enter EGCG
Green tea's main catechin, EGCG, damps one of the body's key inflammation switches (NF-κB). At drinking doses, think volume down, not wire cut - it doesn't block the healthy inflammation that heals you.
And it works hardest where it lands: your gut. Only a small share of EGCG reaches your blood intact. Most of it stays in your gut, which is why that's where the strongest human evidence is.
What's actually been shown in people
| Claim | What the evidence says | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Calms gut inflammation | 4-week human trial: lower gut inflammation markers, a less leaky gut lining, less endotoxin in the blood | Yes |
| Lifts antioxidant defences | Across 38 trials, the body's own antioxidant markers improved | Yes |
| Lowers blood inflammation markers (CRP, IL-6) | Not significant across 38 trials, or in a one-year high-dose trial | No |
| Feeds your good gut bacteria | Mostly mouse studies; higher-quality human trials found no change | No |
| Fixes bloating, brain fog, belly fat or joint aches | Not tested as outcomes. These have many causes. | Not shown |
So what's the Asian don't raisin connection?
Green tea is a daily feature of some of the longest-lived cultures - Japan, China, Korea. There are obviously other factors at play: diet, movement, social connection. So we can't say tea is the reason.
What we can say: drinking it daily, for decades, is one small anti-inflammatory input repeated thousands of times across a lifetime - with nothing working against you. Not a cure. Not a treatment. A habit that quietly takes a little load off.
This is not a magic fix
Green tea won't undo a poor diet, chronic stress or no sleep. Those are the real drivers, and the real fix is the foundation: sleep, food, movement, stress. Green tea is one of the things that takes a call-out away.
Not switch it off. Stop it being stuck on.
That's a different conversation than most wellness products are having. And it's one we think is worth having honestly.
The habit, not the cup.
📚 Human RCT on gut inflammation and permeability, Nutrition Research 2024; antioxidant status and inflammatory markers, meta-analysis of 38 RCTs, Journal of Nutritional Science 2025; Minnesota Green Tea Trial, Nutrients 2026; Janssens et al., 2016; Del Rio et al., 2010.