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The Jerusalem Post Online Green tea protects brain cells By Judy Siegel-Itzkovich (February 18) - Think about this: Green and black teas have been found by Technion researchers to protect brain cells and help prevent them from dying. Although the tests were performed on cell cultures and not on humans or even animals, this evidence could eventually have implications on Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative ailments. Dr. Silvia Mandel, a senior researcher at the Technion's Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, doctoral student Yona Levites and neurogenerative disease expert Prof. Moussa Youdim dosed cell cultures with green and black teas and toxins. The Technion's Focus newsletter reports that the study was the first to link the teas and effects that could counter a breakdown in the brain's neurons. Although green tea has long been known to have anti-carcinogenic and anti-inflammatory properties, it is also relevant in the fight against oxygen free radicals, which may attack cell membranes and cause cell death. These radicals can be removed by antioxidant "radical scavengers," especially polyphenols, found in large concentration in green and black teas commonly consumed in the Far East. Intrigued by the antioxidant properties of such teas, Mandel began in 1997 to study green and black tea (the orange teas preferred in Israel are much less effective) and whether they have neuroprotective properties. Over six days she injected mice with a powdered tea extract and MPTP, a synthetic toxin that causes Parkinsonian-like symptoms. One control group did not get the toxin, while another did, but did not get the tea. Ten days later the mice that got the toxin without the tea showed widespread cell death in the part of the brain most affected in Parkinson's disease, and the production of dopamine, a major neurotransmitter produced by this brain area, was way down. But those injected with the tea extract did not suffer this decline. "At specific concentrations there was 100% protection," says Mandel, who immigrated from Uruguay in 1979, presenting her findings at a meeting of the Israel Society of Neuroscience in Eilat. http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/02/18/Health/Health.21596.html **********