|
Green Tea
and Intestinal Bacteria
One of the amazing
effects of tea catechins is their ability to destroy disease-causing
bacteria like E. coli, Salmonella, Staphylococcus
aureus and Clostridium, especially when they reside in the
digestive tract. One reason that the catechins can do this is they're
not completely absorbed by the body during digestion. Instead, they hang
around in the digestive tract for awhile until they’re broken down by
the intestinal bacteria. This means that they linger longer than typical
food or drink and have more time to exert their health-enhancing
effects.
But if tea catechins are
strong enough to kill major pathogens, what do they do to the “friendly”
bacteria in your intestinal tract – the ones that you actually need in
order to digest and absorb your food properly?
To
find out, scientists from the National University of Singapore looked at the
effects of different tea catechins extracted from Yunnan Chinese tea on the
growth of 28 kinds of intestinal bacteria, both “friendly” and pathogenic.
As expected, the catechins
inhibited the growth of the disease-causing bacteria, especially Clostridium
perfringens (a common cause of food poisoning), Clostridium difficile
(which is linked to colitis), and Bacteroides (which can cause abscesses
if the bacteria escape from the intestines). But the gut’s “friendly”
bacteria, including Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus, were
relatively unaffected by the tea catechins.
What does this mean for you? By drinking green
tea you may be able to favorably increase the proportion of "friendly" to
"unfriendly" bacteria in your intestines. And that could mean better digestion
and better intestinal health.
(Lee
HC, Jenner AM, Low CS, Lee YK. Effect of tea phenolics and their aromatic fecal
bacterial metabolites on intestinal microbiota. Research in Microbiology
2006;157(9):876-84.)
|
Nadine Taylor, M.S., R.D. presents
GreenTeaLibrary.com, the most
comprehensive collection of scientific information describing the
health benefits of green tea.
|
|
