A Common Beverage with Miraculous Oral Health Benefits – A Review on Green Tea

Abstract

Nature has bestowed on us a very rich botanical wealth and a large number of assorted types of plants grown in different parts of country. Plants are the richest resource of drugs in traditional systems of medicine. Green tea is one of the most ancient and popular therapeutic beverages consumed around the world. Green tea in its purest form has always influenced human health from generations and day by day scientific evidences throughout the world are making people aware of health benefits associated with this herbal drink. Though green tea is not officially recognized as a medical agent, it is one of the most researched plant-based remedies with possible benefits like promotion of cardio-vascular health, cancer prevention, skin protection, antioxidant activity and many more including improvement of various oral health conditions. This review highlights some recent facts with relevance to current status of green tea benefits in oral health. Chemical composition of green tea One third part of bioactive compounds in green tea is contributed by polyphenols that is the most interesting constituent. The main type of polyphenols are called catechins (flavan-3-ols) also known as tannins serve as astringency constituent. Dr. Michiyo Tsujimura extracted the catechins from tea leaves in 1929 and studied their functions for the first time during his work at The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Japan. Most important kind of catechins include epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG; 59%), epigallocatechin (EGC; 19%), epicatechin-3-gallate (ECG; 13.6%) and epicatechin (EC; 6.4%) including EGCG and EGC are reported for their presence in green tea. Both the types along with ECG exhibit antimicrobial activity. ECG