1: Life Sci. 2006 Mar 27;78(18):2073-80. Epub 2006 Jan 30.

Green tea and its polyphenolic catechins: medicinal uses in cancer and noncancer
applications.

Zaveri NT.

Drug Discovery Program, Biosciences Division, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA
94025, USA. nurulain.zaveri@sri.com

Can drinking several cups of green tea a day keep the doctor away? This
certainly seems so, given the popularity of this practice in East Asian culture
and the increased interest in green tea in the Western world. Several
epidemiological studies have shown beneficial effects of green tea in cancer,
cardiovascular, and neurological diseases. The health benefits associated with
green tea consumption have also been corroborated in animal studies of cancer
chemoprevention, hypercholesterolemia, artherosclerosis, Parkinson's disease,
Alzheimer's disease, and other aging-related disorders. However, the use of
green tea as a cancer chemopreventive or for other health benefits has been
confounded by the low oral bioavailability of its active polyphenolic catechins,
particularly epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), the most active catechin. This
review summarizes the purported beneficial effects of green tea and EGCG in
various animal models of human diseases. Dose-related differences in the effects
of EGCG in cancer versus neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases, as well
as discrepancies between doses used in in vitro studies and achievable plasma
understanding of the in vivo effects of green tea catechins in humans, before
the use of green tea is widely adopted as health-promoting measure.

PMID: 16445946 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]