Tea can counter radiation damage

A recent study published in the open access journal states that the skin damage caused by radiation treatment in cancer patients can be treated with tea extracts and researchers believe that this might be due to anti-inflammatory properties of tea which are extremely beneficial to damaged skin.

Frank Pajonk from the University of California in Los Angeles and his colleagues from the University of Freiburg, Germany performed a study on the effects of green and black tea extracts on patients who had been treated with radiotherapy. They studied the effects of green and black tea on cancer sufferer's skin and then repeated the same study on human and mouse white blood cells to clarify the effects.

Despite being previously considered beneficial for many health ailments including lower risk of certain cancers, weight loss, and protection against Alzheimer's, tea extracts for the first time have been acknowledged as an effective treatment for more severe skin complaints.

The duration of skin toxicity following radiotherapy can be reduced by 5-10 days as the study found that tea extracts reduce the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-1beta, IL-6, IL-8, TNFalpha and PGE2, in human white blood cells in culture.

It was also said that green tea extracts are more effective than black tea extracts with their higher anti-inflammatory properties which, in both green and black tea is attributed to their high polyphenol content.

Green tea when oxidized by fermentation becomes black tea. Green tea contains between 30 and 40 per cent of water-extractable polyphenols, while black tea contains between 3 and 10 per cent. Oolong tea is semi-fermented tea and is somewhere between green and black tea.