Tea-catechins｜2.Immune enhancing effects

Micro organisms; bacteria

Food borne bacteria such as botulinum bacteria, and staphylococcus bacteria, are found very commonly in the environment around us. When however they enter the body, they produce an extremely strong infection, causing food poisoning, and in the worst case, death.
More serious strains such as MRSA and VRSA have developed a strong resistance to antibiotics, and are very difficult to treat even within a hospital.

Tea catechins fight bacteria

Tea catechins destroy the bacteria's cell membrane, (double lipid layer), and then steadily destroy the whole bacteria. Not only do they destroy the bacteria, but tea catechins render the protein produced by the bacteria as non-toxic. Similarly, in the case of in-hospital infection tea catechins work to enhance ineffective antibiotics, as well as attacking infectious bacteria on their own.

Tea catechins' immune enhancing effects with bacteria cultivation

This picture shows the effect of mixing tea catechins into the medium before plating food borne bacteria. Picture (A) contains no tea catechins and picture (B) contains tea catechins (dark color changes are due to tea catechins). The bacteria were added to the Petri dish in the shape of Japanese characters. Each character is translated to in English as shown.

(A) shows the characters, indicating the bacteria is growing, while on (B), the characters do not appear because the presence of catechins suppresses the growth of the bacteria. In other words, tea catechins suppress food borne bacteria by stopping its growth.

(A) Normal bacteria growth → the letter shapes are where the bacteria is growing

(B) The letters do not appear when tea catechins are present → Tea catechins suppress bacterial growth.

Minimum inhibitory concentrations of tea catechins against food borne pathogenic bacteria: MIC(ppm)