Green tea and its most valuable gift to human health and longevity...

Green tea has been recognised for its health promoting properties for centuries in far eastern cultures and in the west for the last decade or two.

However, what seems to be its greatest offering is just beginning to be appreciated in mainstream nutritional science and the public consciousness.

The general view in recent mainstream nutritional history that it is high in antioxidants so cleanses the body of oxidants like free radicals which can damage cells if left free to run riot.

This of course is all very true but go a bit deeper and we find the most profound health promoting power to be due to the high prevalence of one specific botanical compound in particular. One that goes by the grand old name of epigallocatechin gallate or the much appreciated acronym EGCG . EGCG is what's known as a catechin......and catechins are members of the flavanoid family. In the interest of not getting buried under a litany of botanical terms, lineages and hierarchies, ill summarise flavanoids as plant metabolites that are responsible for a host of favourable mechanisms in plants. When ingested by humans, they seem to confer a range of anti- inflammatory and anti-oxidative effects on our bodies. Now our new friend EGCG seems to be an extremely valuable member within that particular band of botanical allies to human health and accounts for 50-80% of the total flavanoid content of green tea. EGCG seems to have one particularly impressive trait that keeps it head and shoulders above its peers, a certain knack for being able to influence the expression of an extremely important gene in humans. This gene goes by the name of TP53 and why is that gene so important?

Well , it just so happens to posses the function of being able to code/create a protein which either repair DNA damage on cells or if the cell is beyond repair , stop the cells from replicating themselves, a process that if left uninterrupted can lead to the progression of tumors. So in effect, suppresses the pre-cursor to a tumor, effectively stopping those incredibly inconvenient biological proliferations from any more proliferating.

These biological events are taking place in the body all the time and the body is working tirelessly to manage and suppress these with the immune system and gene TP53 is an integral part of that defence. It has actually been granted the grand title of "guardian of the genome" within scientific circles.

Like all genes, TP53 functionality is influenced by two factors, your personal genome (not much we can do about that one) and lifestyle (over to you!). Studies have shown that the consumption of EGCG from green tea has a powerful effect on up regulating the functionality of this evolutionary gift of a gene so effectively making your body more effective at suppressing these potential tumors.

And how to elicit this vitally protective mechanism? the simple practice of merely pouring a cup or few (depending on how much you feel like nudging gene TP3 into action I guess) of this wondrous medicinal beverage down your throat a day.

Best sources?

Well any certified green tea product will do the trick, ideally whole leaf versions but the most bang for your buck would be in the form of matcha powder as that is made from the grounding, and in turn consumption of the entire leaf so would allow more EGCG entering the body.

So merely a couple of cups a day (if the source is matcha)would probably be a suitable dosage and maybe double that if consuming the whole leaf variety. There is always the option of eating the soggy leaves at the bottom of the cup to get a bit more EGCG from regular whole leaf tea but i guess that may not be ideal for everyone's tastes eh.

So there you have it, a simple, accessible practice and nutritional intervention that all can incorporate into their lifestyle to keep the health of that wonderful human body of ours in check. EGCG/P53 tumour suppresor study here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21258-5 Matcha EGCG study below: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14518774/