Green tea and comprehensive healing properties of polyphenols

• Authors: Agata Grzywacz
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Tea, Camellia sinensis L. is the most widely drunk beverage in the world. Comprehensive healing properties of this refreshing, mildly stimulating drink are known in traditional medicine dating back almost 5000 years. Tea healing and disease prevention mechanism is mostly based on antioxidant properties. Tea beverage is a rich source of polyphenols, especially catechins which are very powerful antioxidants. The most abundant catechins in tea beverage are epigallocatechin 3-gallate (EGCG), epigallocatechin (EGC), epicatechin 3-gallate (ECG), and epicatechin (EC). Many investigations i.e. population-based, screening, involving patients and also with animal or cell models, show many valuable pharmacological properties of tea. It is proved by numerous studies that drinking tea or taking tea extracts can prevent chronic diseases, including coronary heart disease and many types of cancer. It can also help with diabetes, hypertension and obesity and may contribute to inflammation reduce. Better understanding of tea healing properties could help reduce high costs of medical care, improve treatment of lifestyle diseases, and transform tea beverage into an evidence based functional food.

Keywords

EN

antioxidants; polyphenols; tea

Discipline

• MEDICINE: MEDICINE

• Journal: Medicina Internacia Revuo
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 25
• Issue: 98
• Pages: 3-13

Contributors

author

Agata Grzywacz

• Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of pharmacy, Medyczna 9 St., 30-688 Kraków, Poland,

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• Document Type: article