Tea & Health Archive
Antioxidant Found In Green Tea Suppresses Breast Cancer Growth In Female Mice | April 10, 2008 | AHN
Posted: April 10th, 2008
Yes, even more anti-cancer research related to tea. This is a note worthy article, not simply for the research it details but for the way the news writer handles the terminology involved. Note how “EGCG”, the darling antioxidant compound, barely receives a definition. As tea and health research continues to be picked up by news and industry marketing fanfares, highly specific and technical terms like “EGCG” or “polyphenol” are creeping their way into the popular vocabulary. Some powerful stuff is at work, without a doubt.
Andrew
Antioxidant Found In Green Tea Suppresses Breast Cancer Growth In Female Mice
April 9, 2008 11:34 a.m. EST
Cecilia Arceo - AHN
Jackson, MS (AHN) - Antioxidant found in green tea can significantly decrease breast tumours in mice, giving hope for the development of new drugs for patients with breast cancer, says researchers.
[From Antioxidant Found In Green Tea Suppresses Breast Cancer Growth In Female Mice | April 10, 2008 | AHN]
ScienceDaily: Green Tea Holds Promise As New Treatment For Inflammatory Skin Diseases
Posted: August 20th, 2007
ScienceDaily: Green Tea Holds Promise As New Treatment For Inflammatory Skin Diseases:
“Green Tea Holds Promise As New Treatment For Inflammatory Skin Diseases
Science Daily — Green tea could hold promise as a new treatment for skin disorders such as psoriasis and dandruff, Medical College of Georgia researchers say.”
I just wanted to mention this because we use a combination of fresh aloe from our backyard and green tea (tea buds) to treat our youngest son’s eczema. He had a pretty bad case of it, and we had used a steroidal creme to treat it, which we were very uncomfortable about. Our home remedy has been very effective it would seem. I say that because it is possible that he is growing out of the problem. But when I saw this article it seem worth mentioning, since eczema is really horrible, especially for babies.
Austin
Technorati Tags: Green tea
Health and Tea - Posting #2 in a Series
Posted: July 20th, 2007
Posted by Melanie Hingle, MPH, RD (Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition, University of Arizona http://cpanarizona.org)
As if we needed more proof that tea is good for you!…a new study published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention (by Yang et al. Vol 16, Pages 1219-1223) found a 37% risk reduction for colorectal cancer in a population of 69,710 Chinese women between the ages of 40 and 70. The ones who appeared to derive the most protection from tea were those who “regularly” drink tea. Now, what does “regular” mean? This is always a good question to ask when reading about research studies on diet and behavior.
This particular study doesn’t go into the specifics, but suggests that ‘daily’ intake is associated with a greater protective benefit. Green tea is the most commonly consumed tea in Shanghai so this is the tea that the study has the most information on — so the results aren’t necessarily applicable to other types of tea (although I suspect similar benefits).
With this type of population research, the results can only be broadly applied to the specific population being studied (in this case, middle-aged Chinese women)…however, results are convincing enough to suggest a benefit could be derived from tea drinking behaviors in OTHER populations as well if they used similar quality tea, and prepared it in a similar manner. In Shanghai, “the common method of tea preparation is to brew dry leaves with hot water” according to the authors of this study. I am not certain how this differs from our American way of preparing tea (e.g. I too brew with hot water?) - perhaps they mean versus cold water brewing? If someone knows, please do let me know - I suspect Austin knows!:)
Lastly, an effect was also noted for the “dose” of tea - i.e. longer duration of tea drinking (years) corresponded with significantly lower risk.
Happy tea drinking!
Health and Tea - Posting #1 in a Series
Posted: May 12th, 2007
Hello to the 7 Cups Community!
Posted by Melanie Hingle, MPH, RD
Austin has asked me to join the 7 Cups Community as a regular contributor to this website, focusing primarily on the health aspects of tea and related topics.
(Of course, he didn’t realize what he was getting himself into when he did!:)
Just a bit about myself - I am research dietitian and doctoral student at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The research I am currently involved in is obesity prevention (children and adolescents).
‘Food as medicine’ is something I’ve always believed in — and this is why I became a health professional. This is also the philosophy I advocate as a dietitian, and as a researcher when I work with the kids and families that participate in our studies…
As I intend to present to you in future posts on this site, the evidence for prevention of chronic disease and promotion of health is stacked in favor of food and drink, not pills and fad diets.
Scientists are finding out more each day, and all signs point to whole foods (not components or extracts of foods) as being the best way to approach diet therapy for disease prevention.
Tea is a great example of a whole food that packs a nutritional punch - drinking it regularly seems to instill health benefits not readily obtained elsewhere…
More on this in the weeks to come…
In the meantime, I will leave you with the latest research in the area of tea!
UAB Researcher Santosh Katiyar, Ph.D., associate professor of dermatology, discusses the results of mechanistic studies that support the potential nutritional value of green tea in protecting skin against sun damage in a review article published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry (May 2007 - Vol 18, Issue 5, pp287-296) - which suggests tea may be of value in prevention of skin cancer. Tea appears to be promising as a therapy both through consumption as a beverage, as well as through topical application of specialized creams on the skin.
The use of green tea as a skin cancer prevention therapy is of particular interest since most medicines currently available for treating cancers are expensive, toxic and not even very effective.
According to Katiyar, the mechanism of its preventive action hinges around the tumor-inhibiting green tea polyphenols, which include the antioxidant, epigallocatechin-3-gallae (EGGCG), which appear to protect the skin from damage by UV radiation. “Green tea prevents UV radiation induced suppression of the immune system, which has been considered a risk factor for the development of skin cancer,” he said.
Happy tea drinking!
BBC NEWS | Health | Cup of tea may help boost memory
Posted: December 26th, 2006
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.
Tea Contaminates
Posted: July 27th, 2006
I promised to answer a question I received through an email (Sorry it has taken so long) on the blog, because it is an issue of concern to all of us. The person that wrote me had heard a lot about Chinese tea being contaminated with pesticides, lead, and other contaminates, and he wanted my take on the issue. This is as complex issue, as it is here in the US, and I wanted to explain some of the complexities in the Chinese and international market.
First of all I think that it is important to point out that the Chinese government is very supportive of organic products and have gone a long way to establish some pretty respectable standards for organics based on a European model. When I first started in the tea business I focused on organic green tea, and at the time there were only five internationally certified producers in all of China and only in green tea. Over the last five years there has been an explosion of organic certification going on in China. Tea is a natural product for this kind of certification because to a large extent it is produced in some of the more unpolluted areas of China, in mountainous areas away from cities, factories, and highways. It is also away from cotton farming, which is notorious for DDT and other airborne pesticides. The tea industry has been organics in China because it has been the easiest. That is of course the good news, but it is not as simple as having organic producers. There are a lot of tea makers in China and the organic producers are a some minority. It is not difficult to buy a fake certification at any wholesale market in China. The Chinese can certainly use Photoshop, and have been masters of forgery for many dynasties. (I have also seen tea with organic certification labeling in the US health food groceries, when I knew there was no tea of that type being made that had become certified.) The producers are not the problem. It is true that they will produce other teas made famous in other areas, but the problem largely comes from the people like me that are in the middle between the producers and the consumers. Like any business where there is a lot of money involved it is industry full of many ways to cheat consumers, and the tea industry has a long history not only in China, but everywhere tea is produced in the world, of deception. The English merchants were notorious for adulterating tea. It got so bad in the 18th century when a lot of green tea was sold in Europe, the use of copper compounds to turn the tea green, wiped out the green tea business in England and replaced it with black. Some Chinese middlemen were arrested and jailed for the very same thing in China a couple of years ago for coloring fake Biluochun. Of course it is not hard to figure out that all of the Longjing being sold is not authentic and the there is not enough land in Darjeeling produce all of the tea sold by that name. It might surprise some of you to know that the majority of the tea sold in the US comes from South America and most of the tea sold in Europe comes from Africa. The environmental standard in both places are questionable, and despite all the talk about fair trade the conditions for workers are shameful. It is also important to understand the distribution channels for tea internationally. Never have producers had anything like direct access to the market. Just a few years ago in China, there were only a dozen or so companies were allowed to export anything. The best importers to dealing with the old Chinese export companies were German brokers. The German clearly defined the standards for the tea they would buy before it was produced and tasked the export companies with insuring that the producers met those standards. Still the best Chinese tea that comes into the US comes from German brokers. The Germans don’t get the best qualities tea but they know exactly what they are getting and they pay a fair market price for it. The other brokers from Europe, the US, and India focus on one aspect of the market, price. When only price is the issue, really anything is possible. The Chinese government, worried about the reputation of tea being exported inspects tea being exported and rejects a lot of tea for export. Still it seems like a token effort. Last year the EU raised the standards for tea being imported and rejected a lot of Chinese tea. Now Chinese producers are racing to meet the new EU standards. It is hard to believe that India and Africa met these standards. There is a quite trade war going on with tea. The demand for higher quality tea, and greater variety, especially green tea, has slammed the markets in India. Africa, and South America, that produce only black tea of questionable quality. The plantation model set up by the East India Company, the first multi national corporation has been in collapse for a while, unable to compete for price with the cheaper labor in Africa and South America. Except for the Germans, and a few independent brokers from other countries, the major international distribution channels are controlled by the Indians that inherited them from the English. So what does all mean to you? I think once tea enters into those established channels all bets are off. Tea is blended and shuffles around. If you go down to the store and pick up a box of tea, no telling where it came from. The was a women a couple of years ago that sued one of the major companies with a new age reputation when she found that there was DDT in her green tea, and as she dug deeper found out that the origin was South America. In a polluted world what can we do? I don’t want to sound like a messenger of doom, but I think we are all becoming aware of how connected we are in our small environment. (Ever gone into the no smoking section of a place that allowed smoking?) I asked a Chinese grower one time about how they grew tea in the days before pesticides, and he told me that in those days there were more birds. So what can we do? Ask a lot of questions, the more questions consumers ask about what they buy the more pressure there is to be able to answer those questions with better practices. Of course, organics and quality teas cost more. It is a hard issue with tea, because the focus has been on price since the East India Company made tea into a commodity.
Austin
Green tea polyphenols may cause liver damage in high doses
Posted: February 22nd, 2006
Research indicates consumption of compound in concentrated pill form can be unhealthy
This story is from the University of Toronto. For me the health benefits of drinking tea has always been the icing on the cake. I’ve never considered taking a green tea pill, I love drinking it too much. Last year there was a lot of buzz in India about a tea pill that you could drop into a cup of hot water and have a cup of tea. Hmmm, I bet that was good. I haven’t seen any on the market. Still, when I look through the supplements at the grocery store here in Tucson, there are plenty of green tea supplements.
Zhuping and I were at the Natural Products Expo four years ago and we were surprised to find that green tea extract had been added to dog food. Of course we have always advocated that dogs get good quality brewed green tea in their bowls, and cats too! Now come to find out that concentrated green tea extract could be hurting our animals livers. Is that animal abuse? The mice at the University of Toronto were certainly not happy. I can understand taking the green tea pills though, having tasted some of the green teas that are available in the same grocery store. Besides tea, I have heard that red wine and chocolate are also pretty good for you. I wonder why the pill form for red wine and chocolate haven’t made it to the supplement isle yet?
The FDA, Green tea, Cancer
Posted: December 12th, 2005
Waking through the information about tea and health is at best murky and confusing. What tea is good for your health and why?
There is so much research out there that a full time researcher would be necessary to sort through it all. The FDA recently refused a request to issue a “Qualified health claim” to label packages of green tea as saying that green tea can help to prevent certain cancers. So does that meant that green tea doesn’t help to prevent certain cancers. Well, no, it doesn’t mean that at all. If you are a research nut and have the patients to wade through what the FDA has posted on their website, you might be surprised by the information there about tea and health. In fact if you go back a bit and look at the history of some of the FDA’s decisions regarding labeling and the bizarre statements that have been made on some of the labels that they have not challenged, you might wonder, “Hey, just what the heck is the FDA’s position on tea and health?” The FDA went out of it’s way to issue a press release that implied that Americans were wasting their money buying green tea for health reasons based on the available research. But is that so? The LA Times reported it this way and we mentioned it here at the blog. Then what happens next, the story is echoed around the world, other papers reprinting the story with their own spin, until the Toronto Star comes up with this headline, “Health fix or fraud: Tea stirs up debate”. Begins to start to sound a little bit like the debates about global warming and evolution. Could it be that the FDA is part of the governments war on science, in the pocket of the pharmaceutical companies? Could our favorite beverage be a target? ‘Inside the FDA’s brain—FDA attacks efficacy of green tea’ talks about the FDA’s process. There is even a bill to force the FDA to be forth coming in it’s disclosures. The Bill is Consumers’ Access to Health Information Act (H.R. 2352) (7)—seeks to amend the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to ensure that:
1. Accurate health claims are not suppressed;
2. Consumers are given truthful and complete information about the curative, mitigation, treatment, and prevention effects of foods and dietary supplements on disease or health-related conditions;
3. The FDA honors the intent of the Congress not to censor accurate health claims.
Lets hope it passes. As for me, I drink tea because I enjoy it first, and I have always thought that the health benefits is icing on the cake.
Flu and cold season…
Posted: November 29th, 2005
As I sit in my bed with a cold, I thought this might be intersting to you. FYI, I am drinking some puer with lots of Chinese herbs in my system, and chicken soup on the stove. I might add that I am not suffering too bad, but here I sit none the less.
Green Tea Helps Fight The Flu
Some of this sounds pretty bad.
HK stocks up on herbs to treat flu pandemic
Things sound a bit better in Bulgaria.
FAMILY MATTERS: Waging war on the winter flu in the kitchen
I hope you are all well!
LA Times has an interesting article…
Posted: November 8th, 2005
What is interesting about this article to me is the FDA’s input. Research with tea and it’s findings can be slanted in so many ways. If you go to the FDA’s website there are many labeling claims that relate to green tea that the FDA doesn’t dispute. The research with green tea starting with the Japanese about twenty-five years ago has been very positive in general, and there are volumes of it.
I had a science professor in college, whenever we would finish an experiment and asked what the results meant, he would always reply that we needed to do more experiments. I’ll keep experimenting on myself.
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