Cuppa' Tea

I never thought I would end up a tea drinker, but I have. And looks like there is some benefit:


Is This the New Anti-Aging Beverage?

One drink--more than any other--will keep your brain young. And that drink is tea. Green tea or black tea. Hot tea or iced tea. It doesn't matter. Tea may be the brain's fountain of youth.

Regular consumption of either green or black tea seems to reduce the risk of age-related degenerative brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, according to researchers from the Douglas Hospital Research Centre at McGill University in Canada. That's right. You may be able to protect your brain later from the ravages of dementia by drinking tea now.

How does tea do this? Catechins, an antioxidant in the tea, actually prevents neurons from dying, combating an underlying cause of Alzheimer's. Led by Remi Quirion, the team used cultured nerve cells (also called neurons) and exposed them to amyloid, a protein believed to cause Alzheimer's disease.

This molecule was toxic and caused cell death in the cultures; however, cell cultures that received the deadly amyloid followed by an administration of tea extracts and catechins were rescued and survived.