Tag: Tea

Drinking tea improves brain structure, study suggests

Drinking tea improves brain structure, study suggests

Drinking tea improves brain structure, study suggests

A recent study led by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) revealed that regular tea drinkers have better organised brain regions — and this is associated with healthy cognitive function — compared to non-tea drinkers. The research team made this discovery after examining neuroimaging data of 36 older adults.

Junhua Li, Rafael Romero-Garcia, John Suckling, Lei Feng. Habitual tea drinking modulates brain efficiency: evidence from brain connectivity evaluation. Aging, 2019; 11 (11): 3876 DOI: 10.18632/aging.102023

#tea #brainhealth #brainstructure

 

https://www.aging-us.com/article/102023/text

Fighting rheumatoid arthritis symptoms and progression with a list of food items proven beneficial

Fighting rheumatoid arthritis symptoms and progression with a list of food items proven beneficial

Fighting rheumatoid arthritis symptoms and progression with a list of food items proven beneficial
Researchers created a list of food items with proven beneficial effects on the progression and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis based upon prior clinical studies. As well as bringing attention to a prior study in which a bacteria ( Diplostreptococcus agalactiae ) derived from pasteurized milk, may be a contributor to rheumatoid arthritis.
Citation: Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis with Dietary Interventions DOI:10.3389/fnut.2017.00052

IRS lawyer says scandal was overseen by D.C., names names

Posted By Patrick Howley On 9:32 PM  07/17/2013 In Politics

Top IRS officials in Washington, D.C. planned and oversaw the agency’s improper targeting of conservative groups, according to the 72-year old retiring IRS lawyer who will testify Thursday before the House Oversight Committee.

Retiring IRS lawyer Carter C. Hull implicated the IRS Chief Counsel’s office, headed by Obama appointee William J. Wilkins, and Lois Lerner, the embattled head of the IRS’ exempt organizations office, in the IRS targeting scandal and made clear that the targeting started in Washington, according to leaked interviews that Hull granted to the Oversight Committee in advance of Thursday’s hearing.

Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George will return to Republican chairman Darrell Issa’s committee Thursday along with two central characters in the IRS saga: Hull and Cincinnati-based IRS employee Elizabeth Hofacre, who previously gave Hull’s name to congressional investigators, fingering him as her Washington-based supervisor.

Hull is naming names.

“In April 2010, Mr. Hull was instructed to scrutinize certain Tea Party applications by one of his superiors in Washington. According to Mr. Hull, these applications were used as ‘test’ cases and assigned to him because of his expertise and because IRS leadership in Washington was ‘trying to find out how [the IRS] should approach these organizations, and how [the IRS] should handle them,’” according to Oversight Committee documents.

“According to Hull’s testimony, Ms. Lerner…gave an atypical instruction that the Tea Party applications undergo special scrutiny that included an uncommon multi-layer review that involved a top advisor to Lerner as well as the Chief Counsel’s office,” according to Oversight Committee documents.

In August 2012, the “Chief Counsel’s office held a meeting with Mr. Hull, Ms. Lerner’s senior advisor, and other Washington officials to discuss these test applications.”

Lerner eventually told Hull that tea party applications would have to go through a round of review at the IRS Chief Counsel’s office, which “created a bottleneck and caused the delay of other Tea Party applications in Cincinnati,” according to Oversight Committee documents.

Former IRS official Michael Seto also told investigators about an email Lerner sent laying out her new review process, in which tea party applications would have to go through her staff, according to Oversight documents.

As The Daily Caller reported, Hull instructed Hofacre’s Cincinnati office, which oversaw audits of tax-exempt nonprofit groups, to target tea party groups and provided her a copy of a letter he wrote to a conservative group requesting additional information in an audit. Hull signed a May 12, 2010 letter to the Albuquerque Tea Party, grilling the group on the recent content of its newsletters and its website.

“I was essentially a front person, because I had no autonomy or no authority to act on [applications] without Carter Hull’s influence or input,” Hofacre told congressional investigators.

Hull is retiring from the IRS this summer, and he recently took down his Facebook page after he was publicly exposed.

Hull’s interviews indicate that he is unlikely to plead the Fifth, as some lawyers involved in the scandal were expecting.

“The big question here is: will Carter Hull plead the Fifth?” Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which represents tea party plaintiffs in a class-action suit against the IRS, told the Daily Caller prior to the leaking of his interview transcripts. “We have letter after letter from him proving that he targeted tea party groups. Will he acknowledge the existence of these letters? Or will he do what Lois Lerner did and plead the Fifth?”

“In her case, unsuccessfully,” Sekulow added.

Lerner, the Washington-based IRS official who originally apologized on behalf of the agency in May, attempted to plead the Fifth Amendment in an Oversight hearing, but committee members, led by Republican chairman Darrell Issa, ruled that she had already waived her Fifth Amendment rights by making a statement in a hearing attesting to her innocence.

It is unclear at this time whether Hull and Hofacre ever met in person prior to Thursday’s hearing.

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Article printed from The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com

URL to article: http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/17/irs-lawyer-says-scandal-was-overseen-by-d-c-names-names/

A cup of black tea could be the next line of defense in the threat of bio-terrorism according to international research

Contact: Professor Les Baillie bailliel@cf.ac.uk 029-208-75535 Cardiff University

Is a cup of tea really the answer to everything — even anthrax?

A cup of black tea could be the next line of defence in the threat of bio-terrorism according to new international research.

A new study by an international team of researchers from Cardiff University and University of Maryland has revealed how the humble cup of tea could well be an antidote to Bacillus anthracis –more commonly know as anthrax.

As a nation, Brits currently drink 165 million cups of tea, and the healing benefits of the nation’s favourite beverage have long been acknowledged.

But now the team of scientists led by Professor Les Baillie from Welsh School of Pharmacy at Cardiff University and Doctor Theresa Gallagher, Biodefense Institute, part of the Medical Biotechnology Centre of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute in Baltimore, has found that the widely-available English Breakfast tea has the potential to inhibit the activity of anthrax, as long as it is black tea.

Anthrax – a potentially fatal human disease – is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. A very serious and rapidly progressing form of the disease occurs when bacterial spores are inhaled making anthrax a potent threat when used as a biological warfare agent.

Published in the March issue of the Society for Applied Microbiology’s journal Microbiologist, Professor Baillie said: “Our research sought to determine if English Breakfast tea was more effective than a commercially available American medium roast coffee at killing anthrax.  We found that special components in tea such as polyphenols have the ability to inhibit the activity of anthrax quite considerably.”

The study provides further evidence of the wide range of beneficial physiological and pharmalogical effects of this common household item.

The research also shows that the addition of whole milk to a standard cup of tea completely inhibited its antibacterial activity against anthrax.

Professor Baillie continued: “I would suggest that in the event that we are faced with a potential bio-terror attack, individuals may want to forgo their dash of milk at least until the situation is under control.

“What’s more, given the ability of tea to bring solace and steady the mind, and to inactivate Bacillus anthracis and its toxin, perhaps the Boston Tea Party was not such a good idea after all.”

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Professor Les Baillie is Professor of Microbiology at Welsh School of Pharmacy.  He is also Associate Professor, Director Biodefense Initiative, Medical Biotechnology Centre, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute in Baltimore, and Adjunct Professor in the Microbiology and Immunology Department, University of Maryland at Baltimore.

Repost from 2008

Green tea may protect brain cells against Parkinson’s disease

Philadelphia, PA, December 13, 2007 – Does the consumption of green tea, widely touted to have beneficial effects on health, also protect brain cells” Authors of a new study being published in the December 15th issue of Biological Psychiatry share new data that indicates this may be the case. The authors investigated the effects of green tea polyphenols, a group of naturally occurring chemical substances found in plants that have antioxidant properties, in an animal model of Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive, degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, resulting from the loss of dopamine-producing brain cells, and there is presently no cure. According to Dr. Baolu Zhao, corresponding and senior author on this article, current treatments for Parkinson’s are associated with serious and important side effects. Their previous research has indicated that green tea possesses neuroprotective effects, leading Guo and colleagues to examine its effects specifically in Parkinson’s. The authors discovered that green tea polyphenols protect dopamine neurons that increases with the amount consumed. They also show that this protective effect is mediated by inhibition of the ROS-NO pathway, a pathway that may contribute to cell death in Parkinson’s.

Dr. Zhao’s hope is that eventually “green tea polyphenols may be developed into a safe and easily administrable drug for Parkinson’s disease.” Dr. Krystal agrees, that “if green tea consumption can be shown to have meaningful neuroprotective actions in patients, this would be an extremely important advance.”

*Reposted for Filing

Green tea extract ‘eradicates cancer tumours’

Powerful new anti-cancer drugs based on green tea could soon be developed   after scientists found an extract from the beverage could make almost half   of tumours vanish.

By , Medical Correspondent 6:05PM BST 21 Aug 2012

The University of Strathclyde team made 40 per cent of human skin cancer   tumours disappear using the compound, in a laboratory study.

Green tea has long been suspected of having anti-cancer properties and the   extract, called epigallocatechin gallate, has been investigated before.

However, this is the first time researchers have managed to make it effective   at shrinking tumours.

Previous attempts to capitalise on its cancer-fighting properties have failed   because scientists used intravenous drips, which failed to deliver enough of   the extract to the tumours themselves.

So, the Strathclyde team devised a “targeted delivery system”, piggy-backing   the extract on proteins that carry iron molecules, which cancer tumours   Hoover up.

The lab test on one type of human skin cancer showed 40 per cent of tumours   disappeared after a month of treatment, while an additional 30 per cent   shrank.

Dr Christine Dufès, a senior lecturer at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy   and Biomedical Sciences, who led the research, said: “These are very   encouraging results which we hope could pave the way for new and effective   cancer treatments.

“When we used our method, the green tea extract reduced the size of many of   the tumours every day, in some cases removing them altogether.

“By contrast, the extract had no effect at all when it was delivered by other   means, as every one of these tumours continued to grow.

“This research could open doors to new treatments for what is still one of the   biggest killer diseases in many countries.”

She added: “I was expecting good results, but not as strong as these.”

Dr Dufès said population studies had previously indicated that green tea had   anti-cancer properties, and scientists had since identified the active   compound as epigallocatechin gallate.

But the Strathclyde researchers were the first to delivery it in high enough   doses to tumours to have an effect.

She explained: “The problems with this extract is that when it’s administered   intravenously, it goes everywhere in the body, so when it gets to the   tumours it’s too diluted.

“With the targeted delivery system, it’s taken straight to the tumours without   any effect on normal tissue.”

Cancer scientists are increasingly using targeted delivery to improve results,   relying on the many different ‘receptors’ that tumours have for different   biological substances.

In this instance, the scientists used the fact that tumours have receptors for   transferrin, a plasma protein which transports iron through the blood.

The results have been published in the journal Nanomedicine.

The “ultimate objective” was a clinical trial in humans – but Dr Dufès said   that was some way off.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9490733/Green-tea-extract-eradicates-cancer-tumours.html