NOW Foods - Study Uncovers Green Tea's Ability to Help Prevent Alzheimer Disease

Study Uncovers Green Tea's Ability to Help Prevent Alzheimer Disease

By Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS, September 22, 2005, abstracted from “Green Tea Epigallocatechin-3-Gallate (EGCG) Modulates Amyloid Precursor Protein Cleavage and Reduces Cerebral Amyloidosis in Alzheimer Transgenic Mice” in the September 21, 2005 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

The number of Americans with Alzheimer Disease (AD) has more than doubled since 1980. It now stands at over 4.5 million Americans, and is expected to hit 16 million by 2050.¹ National direct and indirect annual costs of caring for individuals with AD now exceed $100 billion.²

Fortunately, research has uncovered a number of ways to help prevent AD. Increasing your intake of wine³ and apples,⁴ increasing your HDL cholesterol,⁵ supplementing your diet with vitamin E⁶ and grape seed extract⁷ and exercising to increase your bone mineral density⁸ are all ways to help protect you against AD.

Now a new study⁹ has found another way to help prevent AD: drinking green tea.

When it comes to healthy foods and nutritional supplements, perhaps none has received more favorable press than green tea.¹⁰ It has been suggested that the antioxidants in green tea called catechins¹¹ are responsible for green tea’s ability to help prevent cancers of the stomach,¹² lung,¹³ prostate¹⁴ and ovary.¹⁵ Green tea has also been a proposed treatment to help prevent kidney failure in diabetics¹⁶ and even to help increase exercise endurance.¹⁷

In the study, researchers gave daily injections of EGCG, the primary catechin in green tea, in amounts of 20 mg per kg of bodyweight for two months to a group of five mice that were specially bred to be prone to developing AD. The researchers injected five more of the AD-prone mice with a control substance.

Researchers found as much as a 54% reduced the buildup of beta-amyloid plaque in the EGCG-treated mice. It is this beta-amyloid plaque that causes the brain damage that is the hallmark of AD.¹⁸

For the researchers, this study “raises the possibilitythat [green tea] dietary supplementation may provide effective (prevention against) AD.”

Greg Arnold is a Chiropractic Physician practicing in Danville, CA. You can contact Dr. Arnold directly by emailing him at mailto:ChiroDocPSUalum@msn.com or visiting his website www.CompleteChiropracticHealthcare.com

Reference:

¹ Hebert, LE; Scherr, PA; Bienias, JL; Bennett, DA; Evans, DA. “Alzheimer Disease in the U.S. Population: Prevalence Estimates Using the 2000 Census.” Archives of Neurology August 2003; 60 (8): 1119 – 1122

² Ernst, RL; Hay, JW. “The U.S. Economic and Social Costs of Alzheimer’s Disease Revisited.” American Journal of Public Health 1994; 84(8): 1261 – 1264

³ Yanai, T., Y. Suzuki, and M. Sato, Prolyl endopeptidase inhibitory peptides in wine. Biosci Biotechnol Biochem, 2003. 67(2): p. 380-2

⁴ Lee, C. Y. (2004). "Protective Effects of Quercetin and Vitamin C against Oxidative Stress-Induced Neurodegeneration." Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 52: 7514-7517

⁵ Wolf, H., A. Hensel, et al. (2004). "Serum lipids and hippocampal volume: The link to Alzheimer's disease?" Ann Neurol 56(5): 745-9

⁶ Morris, M. C., D. A. Evans, et al. (2005). "Relation of the tocopherol forms to incident Alzheimer disease and to cognitive change." Am J Clin Nutr 81(2): 508-14

⁷ Kim H. Consideration of Grape Seed Extract as a Preventive against Alzheimer Disease. The Alzheimer's Association International Conference on Prevention of Dementia, June 18-21, 2005 www.alz.org/preventionconference/pc2005/overview.asp

⁸ Tan, Z. S., S. Seshadri, et al. (2005). "Bone mineral density and the risk of Alzheimer disease." Arch Neurol 62(1): 107-11

⁹ Tan J. Green Tea Epigallocatechin-3-Gallate (EGCG) Modulates Amyloid Precursor Protein Cleavage and Reduces Cerebral Amyloidosis in Alzheimer Transgenic Mice J. Neurosci. 2005 25: 8807-8814

¹⁰ Fujiki, H. (2005). "Green tea: Health benefits as cancer preventive for humans." Chem Rec 5(3): 119-32

¹¹ Sartippour, M. R., D. Heber, et al. (2001). "Green tea and its catechins inhibit breast cancer xenografts." Nutr Cancer 40(2): 149-56

¹² Sasazuki, S., M. Inoue, et al. (2004). "Green tea consumption and subsequent risk of gastric cancer by subsite: the JPHC Study." Cancer Causes Control 15(5): 483-91

¹³ Bonner, M. R., N. Rothman, et al. (2005). "Green tea consumption, genetic susceptibility, PAH-rich smoky coal, and the risk of lung cancer." Mutat Res 582(1-2): 53-60

¹⁴ Jian, L., L. P. Xie, et al. (2004). "Protective effect of green tea against prostate cancer: a case-control study in southeast China." Int J Cancer 108(1): 130-5

¹⁵ Zhang, M., A. H. Lee, et al. (2004). "Green tea consumption enhances survival of epithelial ovarian cancer." Int J Cancer 112(3): 465-9

¹⁶ Yokozawa T. Green tea polyphenols and dietary fibre protect against kidney damage in rats with diabetic nephropathy. J Pharm Pharmacol. 2005 Jun;57(6):773-80

¹⁷ Murase, T., S. Haramizu, et al. (2005). "Green tea extract improves endurance capacity and increases muscle lipid oxidation in mice." Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 288(3): R708-15

¹⁸ Butterfield DA. Amyloid beta-peptide(1-42) contributes to the oxidative stress and neurodegeneration found in Alzheimer disease brain. Brain Pathol. 2004 Oct;14(4):426-32