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Green Tea
and Superbugs
Ever wondered if you should be drinking green tea
when you’re taking antibiotics? Medical researchers from Egypt’s
Alexandria University say you should! They were curious about green
tea’s effects on antibiotics: Would it interfere, have no effect or
increase the effects of these medications? To find out, the researchers
tested the combination of drinking green tea while taking various
antibiotics against 28 disease-causing microorganisms, some of which
were resistant to our most powerful medications. They found that in
every single case, green tea enhanced the antibiotics’ ability to
kill the bacteria and, in some cases, increased their effectiveness by
as much as three times!
At the same time, green tea decreased the drug
resistance of almost all bacteria tested, making them more susceptible to the
bactericidal effects of the antibiotics. This is important because an alarming
number of drug-resistant strains of bacteria are evolving, requiring stronger
and stronger antibiotics to keep them under control. But trying to control them
by using more potent antibiotics just encourages the evolution of even mightier
superbugs, and scientists fear that one day we may be at the mercy of superbugs
we can’t control. So green tea’s ability to reduce bacterial drug resistance is
welcome news.
The researchers concluded that drinking green tea while
taking antibiotics appears to increase the action of antibiotics and reduce the
drug resistance of bacteria, even in superbug strains. And, in certain
instances, even a small amount of green tea was able to produce these results.
(Society for General Microbiology (2008,
April 1). Green tea helps beat superbugs, study suggests. ScienceDaily.
Retrieved May 22, 2008, from
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080330200640.htm)
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Nadine Taylor, M.S., R.D. presents
GreenTeaLibrary.com, the most
comprehensive collection of scientific information describing the
health benefits of green tea.
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