Research News
More information:
Green Tea Cheap Prophylaxis
There already are more than 100 clinical studies world-wide that have researched the effect of green tea on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, Chorea Huntington, multiple sclerosis, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, arteriosclerosis and cancer. However, during an international conference on "Tea and Health" at the MDC, scientists and physicians said that these studies are difficult to compare with each other.
The clinical studies involving green tea focus on the substance EGCG (epigallocatechin 3-gallate). By now, a multitude of studies provides proof that the regular consumption of green tea or green tea extracts has many health-promoting and preventive effects, in particular with regard to adiposity, diabetes, infections and cardiac conditions. The first to promote research involving EGCG was the neuroscientist Prof. Erich Wanker from the MDC. He and his collaborators had discovered the positive effect of the green tea substance EGCG on cases of Chorea Huntington already in laboratory tests in 2006. In 2008 they furthermore could show that this substance dramatically influences the incorrect protein folding processes in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. "Together with structural biologists we now attempt to throw light on how EGCG works in detail in the example of various neurodegenerative diseases", said Prof. Wanker, who had contributed to organising the conference.
