by frankiespeakin 4 Replies latest jw friends
For about 1 week I have been drinking Mate herb tea. This tea is very popular in South America,,mainly it taste good and has great health benifits.
It is a stimulant but you can drink it before going to bed and sleep peacefully,,it also is used for mental clarity.
There are many health benifits,,just type "Yerba Mate" in your search engine and see what come up. It is packed full of vitamins and minerals.
I highly recomend it.
I have tried Yerba mate but it's too strong for my taste. I recently bought a chocolate Yerba Mate tea and it's much better in taste.
Devon
my roommate is from beunos aries and drinks this stuff, i only recently tried it. it is not bad, smells a very lightly like tobacco to me. tastes pretty good and seems to be much better for you than caffeine.
here is a brief snip from this article : http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/yer_02.htm
Mateine appears to possess the best combination of xanthine properties possible.
For example, like other xanthines, it stimulates the central nervous system, but unlike most, it is not habituating or addicting. Likewise, unlike caffeine, it induces better, not worse, attributes of sleep.
It is a mild, not a strong, diuretic, as are many xanthines. It relaxes peripheral blood vessels, thereby reducing blood pressure, without the strong effect on the medulla and heart exhibited by some xanthines.
We also know that it improves psychomotor performance without the typical xanthine-induced depressant after effects.
Dr. Jose Martin, Director of the National Institute of Technology in Paraguay, writes, New research and better technology have shown that while mate'ine has a chemical constituency similar to caffeine, the molecular binding is different.
Mateine has none of the ill effects of caffeine. And Horacio Conesa, professor at the University of Buenos Aires Medical School, states, There is not a single medical contraindication for ingesting mate'.
And of course another article, that says previous article is totally bogus and this time from a site I know to contain good information -
http://www.erowid.org/plants/yerba_mate/yerba_mate_chemistry1.shtml
One of the most surprising parts of the research into the topic is that it appears that several articles available online are completely bogus, having been either faked by a vendor to improve sales or a Yerbe Mate fan in order to explain why they liked Yerba Mate tea and not other types of caffeinated tea.
One of the errors in the literature talking about "mateine" is the claim that it is a stereoisomer of caffeine. This stands out because, as any organic chemist can easily tell you, there is no stereoisomer of caffeine. The caffeine molecule lacks a stereocenter and thus there are no rotational isomers at all. This error, repeated widely, shows the people writing the texts know little about chemistry and the rest of their information about this theoretical chemical must be considered suspect.
One thing to note is that people report slightly different effects from drinking Yerba Mate than from drinking green tea, although the exact differences have not been well documented. A common misunderstanding exists that this necessarily means that Yerba Mate does not contain caffeine as a major psychoactive alkaloid. It is possible for different experiential effects to be a result of other variables, including differences in dosage, differences in accompanying minerals or related alkaloids, expectations, taste, smell, etc. Mint tea or gum, for instance, can be stimulating or refreshing partially based on smelling the volatile fragrance oil. It is not known exactly in what ways Yerba Mate is experientially different from Chinese teas or what accounts for those differences.
Sirious,
Thanks, for the info.,,,I been tripin so this is my first time back to JWD. It was intense to say the least(Hicks rd.).
Yes erowid has some pretty good info. I respect their information. That why I would like to paste this from your above link:
Source cited by many with claim of mateine's existence:
"Chemical assays on mate have traditionally looked for caffeine. In such tests mateine, being a simple stereoisomer of caffeine, would test positive. Until recently nobody has looked at the exact structure of the molecule -- and, to my knowledge, nobody in the United States has ever made the attempt. Researchers at the Free Hygienic Institute of Hamburg, Germany, concluded that even if there were caffeine in mate, the amount would be so tiny that it would take 100 tea bags of mate in a six ounce cup of water to equal the caffeine in a six ounce serving of regular coffee. They make the rather astute observation that it is obvious that the active principle in yerbamate in not caffeine! But then, we know for sure it is not caffeine, for caffeine is not present at all.
Mateine has a unique pharmacology and it is unfair to compare it to caffeine (incidentally, guarana may not contain caffeine either -- it may contain something that could by called guaraneine -- however that substance looks like it is more deleterious that caffeine!) Mateine appears to possess the best combination of xanthine properties possible. For example, like other xanthines it stimulates the central nervous system; but unlike most, it is not habituating or addicting. Likewise, unlike caffeine, it is a mild (not strong) diuretic, as are many xanthines. It relaxes peripheral blood vessels, thereby reducing blood pressure without the strong presser effects on the medulla and heart exhibited by some xanthines. We also know that it improves psychomotor performance without the typical xanthine-induced depressant after effects. Dr. Jose Martin, Director of the National Institute of Technology in Paraguay, writes, 'New research and better technology have shown that while mateine has a chemical constituency similar to caffeine, the molecular binding is different. Mateine has none of the ill effects of caffeine.' And Horacio Conesa, professor at the University of Buenos Aires Medical School, states, 'There is not a single medical contradiction' for ingesting mate. Clinical studies show, in fact, that individuals with caffeine sensitivities can ingest mate without adverse reactions. -- Daniel B. Mowrey, PhD"
I can see where this can be easily misread by some one to mean mateine is an stereoisomer of caffeine an:
"Chemical assays on mate have traditionally looked for caffeine. In such tests mateine, being a simple stereoisomer of caffeine, would test positive. Until recently nobody has looked at the exact structure of the molecule -- and, to my knowledge, nobody in the United States has ever made the attempt
Clearly it is not being claimed here that mateine is an stereoisomer,,it just says basically,, if it "was",, it would test positive for caffine.
