On April 15, 2021, a symposium on green tea and health was held in Kyoto. This symposium is held regularly, but this time there was a lecture on the effectiveness for COVID-19 and the efforts of researchers. We report on the details.
To state the conclusion at first, their consensus was reached at as below:
- Catechin, a green tea ingredient, has an anti-bacteria and anti-virus effect, and a certain effect has been confirmed in demonstration experiments for the prevention of influenza. Perhaps the same effects can be expected of COVID-19.
- However, its effectiveness is to prevent from them, and the main roles depend on daily drinking and gargling of green tea that are prevention of suction of viruses and suppression of multiplication in your mouth, and control of diffusion by droplets.
Height of attention to “Tea”
he symposium featured several researchers presenting their findings on the effect of green tea, particularly against influenza, and a debate on the effect against COVID-19. The symposium was also limited to the public via the Internet. Overseas participants also participated in the viewing, which showed the high level of interest in green tea, again.
Interestingly, some elementary school’s students in Shizuoka Prefecture, famous for producing tea in Japan, have been gargling with green tea, and they found that groups gargling had fewer rates of influenza compared with the other.
Also, various studies have been reported on the effects of tea against COVID-19. For example, with regard to the control of viruses in saliva, black tea was the most effective in all conventional, British, and Brazilian types of them, while green tea was a little weaker in British them, and so on. However, all of them still had fewer experimental samples, and we felt they were short of certainty.
In response to the question of which is more effective, green tea or matcha, they said that match, powdered green tea can be expected to have a certain effect because its ingredients are incorporated more efficiently.
Enjoy Tea on a Daily Basis
Finally, in our opinion, this report is still in the middle stage, and we think the research should continue in the future. Tea itself is full of other health effects, including anti-virus effects. For example, it is said that drinking green tea habitually makes it hard to get stomach cancer. However, caffeine is also included, so we want you to enjoy yourself moderately.
