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Green Tea Compounds Prevent Hypoxia Nerve Damage 5-15-08
Compounds in green tea protect against neurological damage from obstructive
sleep apnea -- at least in rats, researchers said here.
The compounds also prevent loss of cognitive ability as measured in a maze test,
according to David Gozal, M.D., of the Kosair Children's Hospital Research
Institute, and colleagues.
The findings suggest that the "potential therapeutic role" of green tea catechin
polyphenols (GTPs) deserves more investigation, Dr. Gozal and colleagues said in
the May 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care
Medicine.
The researchers noted that obstructive sleep apnea has been increasingly linked
to a range of long-term morbidities, including learning and psychological
disabilities, metabolic consequences, and cardiovascular disorders.
Patients with the condition have increases in circulating markers of oxidative
stress and inflammation and develop losses of regional gray and white matter --
changes that have been mimicked in mice experimentally exposed to intermittent
hypoxia during their sleep cycle, Dr. Gozal and colleagues said.
"A growing body of evidence suggests that the adverse neurobehavioral
consequences imposed by (intermittent hypoxia) stem, at least in part, from
oxidative stress and inflammatory signaling cascades," Dr. Gozal said in a
statement.
So the researchers decided to see what effect GTPs would have on these cascades.
For 14 days, they exposed adult male Sprague-Dawley rats to intermittent hypoxia
while they slept. Some of the rats were treated with GTPs, administered in their
drinking water.
As an extra control, rats exposed only to room air were also given either plain
water or water with GTPs added.
Dr. Gozal and colleagues measured a range of inflammatory and oxidative
responses to the hypoxia, as well as testing the animals' cognitive abilities in
a Morris water maze.
In the maze, the animals are timed on their ability to find an underwater
platform and remember its location, using visual cues placed around the sides.
The process is used to measure learning and spatial memory.
The researchers found that the GTPs attenuated hypoxia-induced inflammatory and
oxidative responses.
For example, lipid peroxidation in cortical tissue -- a measure of oxidative
damage to brain cells -- was doubled in rats given only water and exposed to
hypoxia, compared with animals allowed to breathe room air with or without GTPs.
The rats treated with GTP and exposed to hypoxia had 33% less lipid peroxidation
than those who only got water and were hypoxic. All the differences were
significant at P<0.05.
The researchers also measured prostaglandin E2 levels in cortical and
hippocampal tissue as a marker of inflammation. Again, they found that rats
exposed to room air (with or without GTPs) had significantly lower levels
(P<0.05) than the hypoxic animals given only water.
In the hypoxic animals treated with the GTPs, inflammation was sufficiently
attenuated that there were no significant differences between them and the
control animals, the researchers found.
In the maze test, the final element occurs when the animals have learned the
location of the platform. The researchers then remove the platform and measure a
range of factors, including how much time the animals spend in the region where
it used to be and how many times they swim over the previous location.
In all those tests, Dr. Gozal and colleagues said, the hypoxic animals given
only water did significantly worse (P<0.05) than all the other groups.
The hypoxic animals treated with GTPs were not significantly different from the
room-air rats.
The results indicate that GTPs "are capable of attenuating (intermittent
hypoxia-induced) spatial learning deficits," Dr. Gozal and colleagues said.
While further research is needed, they added, GTPs "may represent a potential
interventional strategy for patients" with sleep-disordered breathing.