So here comes part 3 of this series about green tea and Alzheimer's disease. As i have mentioned before green tea and its polyphenols are one of the best known anti Alzheimer's disease and dementia treatments out there. The reason for this is its multi-action approach.
Alzheimer's disease is complicated and so relying on single strategies like the pharmaceutical companies do is plain stupid. So why don't the drug companies sell green tea? Easy, they can't patent its contents and so cannot make money from it. This is good for us because not only it green tea better than any current Alzheimer's disease and dementia drugs but it is also significantly cheaper and safer.
So after green tea's metal chelation and anti-oxidant activities what is activity number 3? I bet you didn't guess anti-beta amyloid. "You are probably saying anti-beta what?" Well i don't blame you. Beta amyloid is a protein that forms clumps in the brain. This then leads to numerous other problems culminating in neuron death. Basically all you need to know is that without beta amyloid there is no Alzheimer's disease.
So how do we stop it forming or get rid of it once it does? For the purposes of this post green tea is one convenient answer. There are several studies in mice with Alzheimer's disease shows that giving them the main active green tea polyphenol called epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) in drinking water decreases levels of this beta amyloid by as much as 58% (see here).
The mechanism by which green tea does this is via preventing beta amyloid forming in the first place. It basically programs the neurons to produce healthy beta amyloid that does not form clumps. If clumps do not form the beta amyloid can be broken down and removed from the brain preventing its damaging effects.
This activity of green tea is significant. No drugs to date have this action let alone the metal chelation, antioxidant and the other actions i will save for other posts. So don't waste any time. Get your 5 cups per day of green tea for the best results.
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