Green Tea, The Beverage Protects The Brain Cells Against the Onset of Huntington's disease in Vitro, Scientists Say

Kyle J. Norton 

Green tea may have a therapeutic and positive effect in reducing symptoms and treatment of Huntington's disease (HD), some scientists suggested.

Huntington's disease (HD), also known as Huntington's chorea, is an inherited disorder characterized by the death of brain cells. In other words, HD is a neurodegenerative disease with physical, cognitive and emotional symptoms

Most common and early symptoms of patients with HD are subtle problems with mood or mental abilities, followed by a general lack of coordination and an unsteady gait.

The gene that affects Huntington disease is the protein named huntingtin.

Dr. Elisabeth Möncke-Buchner, in the study "Counting CAG repeats in the Huntington’s disease gene by restriction endonuclease EcoP15I cleavage" wrote, "The disease is caused by a CAG trinucleotide repeat expansion located in the first exon of the HD gene. The CAG repeat is highly polymorphic and varies from 6 to 37 repeats on chromosomes of unaffected individuals and from more than 30 to 180 repeats on chromosomes of HD patients".

The defect of CAG sequence repeated too many times at the beginning of the gene, leading to the manufacture of mutant huntingtin, a protein can cause certain parts of the brain to die, particularly the cells in the caudate.

As the disease progresses, the outer part of the lentiform nucleus of the brain. also, are affected.
As the brain cells die, symptoms are even worse, affecting all aspects of physical, cognitive and emotional functioning.

According to the statistic provided by the Huntington Society of Cannada, approximately 1 in 7000 people in Canada has HD and every child of a person with HD has a 50% chance of inheriting the gene which causes the illness.

Green tea is a precious drink processed numbers of health benefit known to almost everyone in Asia and the Western world.

In the findings of natural ingredient that may protect the brain against neurodegeneration, such as Huntington's disease (HD), researchers at the conducted study to evaluate whether flavonoids isolated from green tea exerts benefits in the treatment of 3-NP induced experimental model of HD in rats.

After 14 days that the tested rats were pretreated with Rutin, a potent antioxidant (25 and 50 mg/kg b.w.) orally prior to the intraperitoneally (i.p.) administration of 3-NP (10 mg/kg b.w.), researchers found that

* Injection of Rutin demonstrates a significant effect in promoting the productions of the antioxidant enzymes from the host such as glutathione (GSH) levels, superoxide dismutase (SOD), Catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione-S-transferase (GST), glutathione reductase (GR)against the 3-NP induced striatal damage by increased the levels of lipid peroxides, nitrite, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and acetylcholine esterase (AchE).

* Rutin treatment of 25 and 50 mg/kg b.w. also has a significant effect in restoring all the biochemical, behavioral and histological alterations caused by the 3-NP through its antioxidant activity.

* Rutin treatment rats also restored the body weight, locomotor activities and, memory caused by systemic administration of 3-NP.

Where 

* Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) is an intermediate filament protein that is expressed in glial cells (astrocytes) and increased GFAP immunoreactivity (or astrocytic activation) is usually viewed as an index of gliosis or a relatively slow-developing correlate of neural damage, according to Finch, 2003; Hausmann, 2003.and

* Acetylcholine esterase (AchE).is an enzyme with function as neurotransmitters,

Additionally, in the investigation of the effects of L-theanine, a unique amino acid which has the function to crosses the blood-brain barrier and possesses neuroprotective potential against neurodegenerative disorders including Huntington disease (HD), researchers at the J I. K Gujral Punjab Technical University conducted an experiment with 3-nitropropionic acid (3-NP) induced a spectrum of HD-like neuropathology in rat striatum.

Rats were administered with 3-NP for 21 days. L-theanine was given once a day, 1 h prior to 3-NP treatment for 21 days and L-NAME (10 mg/kg, i.p.), NO inhibitor and L-arginine (50 mg/kg; i.p.), NO precursor were administered 1 h prior to L-theanine treatment. Body weight and behavioral observation were made on weekly basis.

At the final report, researchers wrote,
* The altered body weight, locomotor activity, motor coordination, mitochondrial complex-II activity, oxidative defense, pro-inflammatory mediators, and striatal neurotransmitters level caused by injection of 3-NP were totally significantly restored by pretreatment of L-theanine.

* Interestingly, concurrent treatment of L-NAME with L-theanine (25 mg/kg/day, p.o.) significantly enhanced the protective effect of L-theanine (25 mg/kg/day, p.o.) whereas concurrent treatment of L-arginine with L-theanine (50 mg/kg/day, p.o.) significantly ameliorated the protective effect of L-theanine (50 mg/kg/day, p.o.). 

These results indicated that L-theanine displays the neuroprotective potential involving the inhibition of detrimental nitric oxide production and prevention of neurotransmitters alteration in the striatum.

The findings, not all ingredients isolated from green tea exerting the neuroprotective effect against the onset of neurodegenerative diseases including HD, however, moderate intake of green tea regularly and daily may provide a strong effect in ameliorating the symptoms and protecting the brain against neurons damage and death

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.
Sources
(1) Effect of rutin against a mitochondrial toxin, 3-nitropropionicacid induced biochemical, behavioral and histological alterations-a pilot study on Huntington's disease model in rats by Suganya SN1, Sumathi T2. (PubMed)
(2) Green tea (-)-epigallocatechin-gallate modulates early events in huntingtin misfolding and reduces toxicity in Huntington's disease models by Ehrnhoefer DE1, Duennwald M, Markovic P, Wacker JL, Engemann S, Roark M, Legleiter J, Marsh JL, Thompson LM, Lindquist S, Muchowski PJ, Wanker EE. (PubMed)
(3) L-theanine, a Component of Green Tea Prevents 3-Nitropropionic Acid (3-NP)-Induced Striatal Toxicity by Modulating Nitric Oxide Pathway by Jamwal S1,2, Kumar P3.(PubMed)
(4) Counting CAG repeats in the Huntington’s disease gene by restriction endonuclease EcoP15I cleavage vt Elisabeth Möncke-Buchner, Stefanie Reich, Merlind Mücke, Monika Reuter, Walter Messer,1Erich E. Wanker,2 and Detlev H. Krügera. (PMC)