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Scientists from the University of South Florida found that high doses of the antioxidant epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) found in green tea prevented Alzheimer’s-like damage in the brains of mice bred to develop symptoms of this disease.

One of the possible causes of Alzheimer’s disease is the harmful accumulation of beta-amyloid, which is just a very small protein fragment of a larger protein in brain cells. After several months of injecting the mice with pure EGCG on a daily basis, the nerve cells of the mice generated 54% less beta-amyloid proteins than not-treated mice.

In the case of humans, we would need a daily dose of 1,500 to 1,600 mg of pure EGCG to achieve the similar effect experienced by the mice and this daily dose has been studied in healthy human volunteers and was found to be safe and well tolerated. The drinking of green tea alone would not be sufficient to have this particular effect.

Reference: “Green Tea Epigallocatechin-3-Gallate (EGCG) Modulates Amyloid Precursor Protein Cleavage and Reduces Cerebral Amyloidosis in Alzheimer Transgenic Mice” Kavon Rezai-Zadeh, et al. Journal of Neuroscience (2005) 25(38):8807-8814

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