Animal study: Green tea may protect brain cells against Parkinson's disease

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Public release date: 13-Dec-2007

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-12/e-gtm121307.php

Contact: Jayne Dawkins

ja.dawkins@...

Elsevier

Green tea may protect brain cells against Parkinson's disease

Philadelphia, PA, December 13, 2007 – Does the consumption of green tea,

widely touted to have beneficial effects on health, also protect brain

cells " Authors of a new study being published in the December 15th issue

of Biological Psychiatry share new data that indicates this may be the

case. The authors investigated the effects of green tea polyphenols, a

group of naturally occurring chemical substances found in plants that

have antioxidant properties, in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive, degenerative disorder of the

central nervous system, resulting from the loss of dopamine-producing

brain cells, and there is presently no cure. According to Dr. Baolu

Zhao, corresponding and senior author on this article, current

treatments for Parkinson’s are associated with serious and important

side effects. Their previous research has indicated that green tea

possesses neuroprotective effects, leading Guo and colleagues to examine

its effects specifically in Parkinson’s. The authors discovered that

green tea polyphenols protect dopamine neurons that increases with the

amount consumed. They also show that this protective effect is mediated

by inhibition of the ROS-NO pathway, a pathway that may contribute to

cell death in Parkinson’s.

Considering the popularity of green tea beverages worldwide, there is

enormous public interest in the health effects of its consumption.

H. Krystal, M.D., Editor of Biological Psychiatry and affiliated with

both Yale University School of Medicine and the VA Connecticut

Healthcare System, reminds us that “many health-related claims have been

made for a wide variety of naturally-occurring substances and many of

these claims, as in the case of St. ’s Wort and Ginko Biloba, have

not held up in rigorous clinical studies. Thus, it is extremely

important to identify the putative neuroprotective mechanisms in animal

models, as Guo and colleagues have begun to do for Parkinson’s disease.”

Dr. Zhao’s hope is that eventually “green tea polyphenols may be

developed into a safe and easily administrable drug for Parkinson’s

disease.” Dr. Krystal agrees, that “if green tea consumption can be

shown to have meaningful neuroprotective actions in patients, this would

be an extremely important advance.”

###

Notes to Editors:

The article is “Protective Effects of Green Tea Polyphenols in the

6-OHDA Rat Model of Parkinson's Disease Through Inhibition of ROS-NO

Pathway” by Shuhong Guo, Jingqi Yan, Tangbin Yang, Xianqiang Yang, Erwan

Bezard and Baolu Zhao. Drs. Guo, Yan, and Zhao are affiliated with State

Key Laboratory of Brain & Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics,

Academia Sinica in Beijing, China. Dr. Yan is also with the Graduate

School of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China. Dr. Zhao is

also with the E-Institutes of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission,

China. Dr. T. Yang is from the Space Cell and Molecular Biology

Laboratory, Institute of Space and Medico-Engineering, Beijing, China.

Dr. X. Yang is affiliated with the Department of Tea Science, Zhejiang

University in Hangzhou, China. Dr. Bezard is with the National Center

for Scientific Research (The Centre National de la Recherche

Scientifique) in Bordeaux, France. The article appears in Biological

Psychiatry, Volume 62, Issue 12 (December 15, 2007), published by Elsevier.

Full text of the article mentioned above is available upon request.

Contact Jayne M. Dawkins at or ja.dawkins@... to

obtain a copy or to schedule an interview.

About Biological Psychiatry

This international rapid-publication journal is the official journal of

the Society of Biological Psychiatry. It covers a broad range of topics

in psychiatric neuroscience and therapeutics. Both basic and clinical

contributions are encouraged from all disciplines and research areas

relevant to the pathophysiology and treatment of major neuropsychiatric

disorders. Full-length and Brief Reports of novel results, Commentaries,

Case Studies of unusual significance, and Correspondence and Comments

judged to be of high impact to the field are published, particularly

those addressing genetic and environmental risk factors, neural

circuitry and neurochemistry, and important new therapeutic approaches.

Concise Reviews and Editorials that focus on topics of current research

and interest are also published rapidly.

Biological Psychiatry (www.sobp.org/journal) is ranked 4th out of the 95

Psychiatry titles and 16th out of 199 Neurosciences titles on the 2006

ISI Journal Citations Reports® published by Thomson Scientific.

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--

ne Holden, MS, RD < fivestar@... >

" Ask the Parkinson Dietitian " http://www.parkinson.org/

" Eat well, stay well with Parkinson's disease "

" Parkinson's disease: Guidelines for Medical Nutrition Therapy "

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