Health News
Health Benefit for Tea Drinkers
April 3, 2006
The regular consumption of green or black tea could help prevent Alzheimer's and other degenerative brain diseases. The benefit of tea comes from two tea extracts and their main constituents, called catechins, and how they affect dying nerve cells.
Beta amyloid is a protein fragment that accumulates in the brain forming hard plaque. When amyloid plaque accumulates between nerve cells (neurons) in the brain, it degrades those nerve cells and leads to Alzheimer's disease. The catechins found in green and black teas have been found to help prevent the death of neurons in the brain and offer protection.
This new study, published in the European Journal of Neuroscience, is the first to show beneficial effects of tea on Alzheimer's.