*How To Protect Against Retinal Degeneration, US National Library of Medicine Studies Show

Green tea phenolic content may have a sustainable and therapeutic effect in reduced risk and progression of retinal degeneration, some scientists suggested.


Green tea, a precious drink processes numbers of health benefit known to almost everyone in Asia and Western world.

Retinal degeneration is a macular disease characterized by impaired vision, night blindness, retinal detachment, light sensitivity, tunnel vision, and loss of peripheral vision to total loss of vision.

The evaluation of green tea effect in risk of retinal degeneration was found to be implicated by several mechanisms through numbers of aspects.

In ROS implication of oxidative stress-induced degeneration of the retina occurred in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and glaucoma, application of green tea polyphenols epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) exhibited antioxidant effect as free radical scavenger in ameliorated chain reaction of ROS in causing loss of neuron with direct effects of retinal function and reduced cytotoxicy of free radicals in induction of retinal cellular apoptosis.

Administration of green tea phynolic compound exerted 10 times more effective in treatment of retinal degeneration, in compared to potent medicine trolox (vitamin E analogue) in attenuating lipid peroxidation caused by the nitric oxide donor, sodium nitroprusside (SNP), according to the study.


Particularly, green tea epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) inhibited a significant decrease of photoreceptor-specific markers (RET-P1, rhodopsin kinase), an indication of photoreceptor cells in the transition to degenerate prematurely, eventually resulting in blindness.

Also, the application reduced an increase in the cell death marker caspase-3 caused by oxidative stress induced by injection of sodium nitroprusside (SNP)

Caspase 3 is an important marker of apoptosis and one of side effect of sodium nitroprusside (SNP) is cyanide toxicity, that can induce over expression ROS in facilitated free radical chain reaction.


According to the observation by Western blotting techniques, SNP was completely inhibited by EGCG injection in ameliorated the detrimental effects to the retina.

Dr. Zhang B, the co-author said, "Since oxidative stress has been implicated in retinal diseases like AMD and glaucoma this study provides "proof of principle" for the idea that daily intake of EGCG may help individuals suffering from retinal diseases where oxidative stress is implicated".


More interestingly, BALB/cJ mice treated with either EGCG or saline via intraperitoneal (IP) injection, and then placed under constant cool white light-emitting diode (LED) light (10,000 lux) for 5 h, showed a strong protective effect on the retina against light damage (LD) in compared to the control group.


In the examine the retinal structure and function after LD, according to the optical coherence tomography (OCT) and electroretinography (ERG), application of green tea EGCG improved significantly higher ERG amplitudes for all three wave types through inducing morphologic protection of photoreceptors in compared to control.

Moreover, the green tea extract bio-compound also decreased oxidative stress through increase the mRNA level of the antioxidant expression of Sod2, a manganese-dependent superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) before LD and 24 h after LD.

Dr. Qi S1,, the lead author said, "The IP injection of EGCG attenuated the detrimental effects of bright light on the retinas of BALB/cJ mice by protecting the structure and function of the retina".


Importantly, in study to evaluate green tea EGCG effect in reduced glutamate and induced excitotoxicity in the retina, researchers conducted a study of female Wistar rats (n = 171) randomly assigned into
*. A normal control group (n = 9);
*. Saline control group with intravitreal saline injections (n = 54);
*. NMDA control group with an intravitreal NMDA injection;
*. Intraperitoneal saline injections (n = 54); and
*. NMDA study group (n = 54) receiving an intravitreal NMDA injection plus intraperitoneal EGCG (25 mg/kg) injections.

Observation of the groups at 2 weeks after additional injection of NMDA, showed that group treated with intraperitoneal application of EGCG reduced a significantly less marked NMDA-associated loss of retinal ganglion cell, through
* Inhibition of decreasing retinal ganglion cell layer (GCL), neurons located near the inner surface (the ganglion cell layer) of the retina of the eye in received visual information from photoreceptors.

These results were observed by differentiation of Thy-1 immunoreactivity in several areas of the immature and adult human brain in expression of retinal ganglion cell damage.

Thy-1 is mostly is expressed by the ganglion cells within the retina and used to index ganglion cell death after ischemia and excitotoxicity.

And NMDA excitotoxicity is associated to the death of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs).


Taken together, there is no doubt that Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), a major polyphenol of green tea, may be used combination with standard therapy for protection and treatment of retinal degenerative disease


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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrients, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published on line, including world wide health, ezine articles, article base, healthblogs, selfgrowth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
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Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bio science, ISSN 0975-6299Sources

(1) Oxidative-induced retinal degeneration is attenuated by epigallocatechin gallate by Zhang B1, Osborne NN(PubMed)
(2) Neuroprotective effect of epigallocatechin-3-gallate against N-methyl-D-aspartate-induced excitotoxicity in the adult rat retina by Chen F1, Jiang L, Shen C, Wan H, Xu L, Wang N, Jonas JB(PubMed)
(3) Intraperitoneal injection of (-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate protects against light-induced photoreceptor degeneration in the mouse retina by Qi S1,2, Wang C1,2, Song D2, Song Y2, Dunaief JL2.(PubMed)--