Green tea slows mental aging

Scientists in Japan have recently found that green tea is likely to slow brain aging, helping prevent declining memory, cognitive impairment, dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

In the study, drinking more than 2 cups of green tea a day cut down the odds of cognitive impairment in elderly Japanese men and women by more than half.

Tohoku University researchers performed the study on 1,003 subjects over age 70. The study compared their green tea intake and mental sharpness, using a Mini-Mental State Examination, a well-accepted standardized test for measuring cognitive function.

At varied levels of cognitive impairment, those who drank the most green tea were still less cognitively impaired than those who drank the least green tea. Compared with Japanese who drank less than 3 cups a week, those who drank 4 to 6 cups of green tea a week (1 cup a day) had a 38% lower risk of cognitive impairment, and those who drank more than 2 cups a day had a 54% lower risk of cognitive impairment. A Japanese cup of green tea is small--about 3.2 fluid ounces.

Green tea's main protection comes from EGCG, a powerful antioxidant that researchers say helps detoxify B-amyloid, a protein incriminated as a cause of Alzheimer's. EGCG also removes (chelates) toxic iron from brain cells. And brand new Israeli research finds that EGCG even reverses brain cell degeneration by spurring new growth, making it a potential treatment for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

The study basically showed that green tea, particularly EGCG, appears to slow brain aging and cognitive deterioration, and may also help revive lost brain cell functioning.