A new study by the University of Michigan Health System (University of Michigan Health System), indicates that component, which is part of the green tea is useful for people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis.
Results of the study were presented to 29 – April at the conference “Experimental Biology 2007″ in Washington. The subject of study became anti properties component of green tea. Researchers found that epigallocatechine-3-gallat (EGCG) prevented production in the immune system molecules that are involved in the inflammatory process and harm the body in rheumatoid arthritis.
Furthermore, found that EGCG suppresses inflammation process in the connective tissue in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
“Our study provides a promising step in the search for therapeutic treatment of damaged joints in patients with rheumatoid arthritis”, – said Saladdin Ahmed, a leading specialist in the study. Ahmed, a researcher Division of Rheumatology at the University of Michigan, was asked to submit the results of a study at Experimental Biology conference, as Winner of Young Scientist Travel Award, established by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. The study also was published in the press release the American Society of Nutrition (American Society for Nutrition).
The scientists took cells that are called “synovial fibroblast”, the joints of patients with rheumatoid arthritis. They form the lining tissue surrounding the capsule joints. The cells were reproduced in the breeding environment and incubated together with a component of green tea.
Then fibroblasts have been processed by causing inflammation cytokines IL-1 β, protein the immune system, playing a central role in the destruction of joints in rheumatoid arthritis.
Researchers tested whether EGCG to block the impact of the two molecules, IL-6 and cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), who is also actively involved in the erosion of bone joints in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
When raw EGCG cells were subjected to the impact of IL-1 β, at the molecular level changes that led to the production of molecules-destroyer bone. However, processed cells, as it turned out, managed to resist the emergence of such molecules. EGCG, moreover, was able to halt the production prostoglandina E2, hormone-like substances, causing susceptible to inflammation of joints.
Conductive ways of regulating the levels of these immune system molecules, in normal and rheumatoid situation well studied, and scientists managed to trace the effect EGCG.
Ahmed said that the study will help synthetically allocated from the EGCG molecule for therapeutic treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.
Laboratory research is now occupied by blocking the role of EGCG in gene expression. Scientists plan to test EGCG on animals with rheumatoid arthritis. These tests will become a base for research on human beings.