100% Customer Satisfaction Guarantee
America's #1 Rated Catalog/Internet Brand
Based on Customer Satisfaction†
Lee Swanson Research Update
Green Tea May Boost Oral Health, Reduce Tooth Loss
April 2010
Drinking one cup of green tea daily may improve dental health and reduce the risk of losing teeth by about 20%, according to a new study from Japan. Plus, drinking more cups appears to reduce the risk even more, with five or more cups a day associated with a 23% reduction in risk. The findings were published in Preventive Medicine.
Being an observational study, the findings do not prove causality, but the link does appear to be biologically plausible, state the authors, led by Yasushi Koyama from Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine. Previous studies have reported that green tea catechins may inhibit the action of oral bacteria linked to the development of periodontal disease, they said.
"A number of experimental studies have shown that green tea catechins inhibit oral bacteria, while some experiments have indicated that the concentration of tea catechin conferring the above effect should be more than 100 mg/100 ml," wrote the authors. "A typical preparation of green tea contains a catechin concentration of 50-150 mg/100 ml. "Therefore, this amount of catechin contained in one cup of green tea might be sufficient to aid tooth retention," they added.
Koyama and co-workers analyzed data from 25,078 people aged between 40 and 64 years. By measuring tooth loss in people with up to 20 teeth still remaining, the researchers calculated that one to two cups of green tea per day was associated with an 18% reduction in tooth loss risk. The same reduction was calculated for three to four cups per day, while five or more cups were associated with a 23% reduction in risk. If the researchers limited or extended the data for people with less than 10, or up to 25 teeth, the same protective levels of green tea consumption were observed.
The researchers noted that a certain level of tea was required to produce the effect. This "threshold" value could be linked to the catechin content of green tea, they added.
Preventive Medicine 50(4):173-179, 2010
