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Green Tea Polyphenols
For more than 4 thousand years Chinese culture has recognized the medicinal
value of drinking green tea. More recent research in China and elsewhere has
demonstrated that green tea can help to prevent a number of degenerative
diseases. The most likely chemicals involved are polyphenols. Green tea is very
rich in these.
Research using electron spin resonance has shown that the polyphenols are
very effective scavengers for free radicals and thus probably act to prevent
oxidative damage, which is a known precursor of degenerative disease.
Of particular interest to the Chinese group is the role of Green Tea
polyphenols in the protection of the nervous system and brain tissue. The
membranes of this tissue contain highly unsaturated fatty acids and are thus
particularly vulnerable to oxidative attack. Using a model membrane system we
have been able to show that the green tea polyphenols prevent oxidative attacks
by entering the membrane and acting there, rather than simply remaining in the
aqueous phase. The polyphenols may be effective therefore because of their
ability to reside at the most vulnerable point of attack for these membranes.
Green tea polyphenols react with 1,1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazol free radicals
in the bilayers of liposomes: direct evidence from electron spin resonance
studies by Chang Chen et al. (2000) Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
48 5710-5714
In a Royal Society funded joint project with the Institute of Biophysics in
Beijing, International Food Research has been investigating the chemical origins
of these effects.
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