BBC NEWS | Health | Cup of tea may help boost memory
Every Chinese student tasked at memorization as the key component to education knows how helpful tea is to memory, but this is really important for all of the families struggling to take care of a family member with dementia.
This is great news to me personally because I take care of my dad and he suffers from dementia. There is not nearly as much dementia in countries that consume a lot of tea, especially green tea, as there is in the West. I am happy to see that there is research being done in this area, but even with all of the research being done with tea currently, it will still take a long time for the knowledge to trickle down to the general population.
For my dad, though, his recover has been surprising. He had a heart attack last year which significantly escalated his dementia. He has improved a lot over the last year, and there has been a lot of things that have helped him. He has a good geriatric doctor that has simplified the medication he takes, he goes to a senior center four days a week, he lives with his family, he gets accupunture, and of course he drinks tea daily. I’m sure all of these things help. My dad drinks puer, not green tea, because of stomach issues. There is almost no research outside of France and China about puer, but most people are familiar with green and black tea. My dad came to his tea drinking later in life. He’s eighty now, and doing well. Perhaps some of his symptoms would have been minimized by earlier tea drinking.
I get calls and emails everyday asking about the health benefits of drinking tea. Even though tea is so good for your health, I find myself being hesitant even reluctant to market tea from that frame of reference. I guess I would be drinking it even if it was bad for you, just for the pure enjoyment. I am thrilled though that Western Science is stepping up to underwrite what the Chinese have known for a very long time.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Austin
BBC NEWS | Health | Cup of tea may help boost memory:
Drinking regular cups of tea could help improve your memory, research suggests.
A team from Newcastle University found green and black tea inhibited the activity of key enzymes in the brain associated with memory.
The researchers hope their findings, published in Phytotherapy Research, may lead to the development of a new treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease.
They say tea appears to have the same effect as drugs specifically designed to combat the condition.
Although there is no cure for Alzheimer’s, tea could potentially be another weapon in the armoury.
Dr Ed Okello
Alzheimer’s disease is associated with a reduced level of a chemical called acetylcholine in the brain.
In lab tests, the Newcastle team found that both green and black tea inhibited the activity of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which breaks down this key chemical.
They also found both teas inhibited the activity of a second enzyme butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE), which has been discovered in protein deposits found in the brain of patients with Alzheimer’s.
Green tea went one step further in that it obstructed the activity of beta-secretase, which plays a role in the production of protein deposits in the brain which are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
