Green tea is popular enough for its health benefits like weight management, reducing stress and anxiety and prevention of various diseases. It is gaining more attention as research on its benefits in other areas continues. How about having a cup of green tea to boost your memory? Yes, it could be true. Some of the latest studies on green tea suggest that green tea can improve your cognitive functioning, working memory and increase brain cell production.
Green Tea For Better Working Memory- A Swiss Study
An experiment conducted at the University of Basel in Switzerland showed that drinking green tea can result in improved ability to recall information, which can mean it helps to boost memory. As a part of the study, a group of healthy participants were given either a beverage containing 27.5 grams of green tea extracts or another dummy beverage as placebo. The participants were not told who received which drink. Further, they were given a series of activities or tasks that required them to use their brains. The tasks were aimed at testing their working memory. While the participants performed the tasks, their brain activity was measured with help of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
What Were The Results?
The group that had consumed green tea performed better in the memory tasks as compared to the group who had consumed the placebo of dummy beverage. On studying the MRI findings, the picture became clearer, which showed a difference in the brain functioning in both groups.
In human brain, the frontal lobe is in charge of advanced thinking capacity, decision making and problem solving while the parietal lobe located behind it deals with processing of sensory information into thoughts and language. In persons consuming green tea, there seemed to be increased or better communication between these two lobes, which made processing of information and memory better. Hence, the group given green tea had better ability to retain information and they performed better that the other group.
What Does The Study Conclude About Green Tea And Its Effect On Memory?
Working memory is involved in holding various pieces of information for processing and there is lot of reasoning and comprehension required for it. Research studies indicate that consuming green tea helped in connecting two important regions in the brain when working, which can help in boosting your working memory. While green tea was known for its benefits in the cognitive area, boosting working memory after consumption of green tea needs to be considered as an important finding.
The active ingredient called epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) is thought to be responsible for these benefits. It is important to note that regular consumption of green tea, providing the required amounts of EGCG may be useful in showing the benefits.
Green Tea For Brain Cell Production- A Chinese Study
Green tea is native to China and India and a popular beverage across the globe. A Chinese study was conducted on two groups of mice, which focused on the area in the brain that deals with information processing in short term to long term memory.
The principle of the study was to understand the effect of epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) on brain cell production and performance in memory related tasks. One group of mice was given EGCG and the other group was a control group. The mice were trained for a task of finding a visible platform in their maze for three days and later on, they were trained for a task of finding a hidden platform for seven days.
What Does The Study Conclude?
The group of mice given EGCG showed better performance in these tasks and could find the hidden platform faster that the control group. With this the scientists could conclude that EGCG was instrumental in boosting their memory and learning processes, which resulted in better performance by group consuming EGCG.
The study concludes that EGCG is related to the increase in production of brain cells in mice. This could be an important basis in determining the relation of green tea with its component EGCG to memory functions and degenerative disorders.
More Studies On Green Tea And Its Benefits On Memory Are On The Way
These studies may have included smaller sample size or it may be difficult to conclude differences based on individual behavior patterns and their influence on task performances. Considering the possible limitations of these studies, there is a need for further research. More studies need to be conducted and more in depth experiments are being planned.
The present studies and their conclusions, in general suggest that green tea helps to boost memory and brain cell production and may even be beneficial in spacial learning. These studies may hint towards the possibility that green tea could be beneficial in conditions like dementia, memory related problems and other psychiatric disorders.
While there is more research on the way, green tea is already known for its cognitive and other health benefits. So, it is worth grabbing a cup of green tea anyways.
Also Read:
