Abstract
Green tea can influence the gut microbiota by either stimulating the growth of specific species or by hindering the development of detrimental ones. At the same time, gut bacteria can metabolize green tea compounds and produce smaller bioactive molecules. Accordingly, green tea benefits could be due to beneficial bacteria or to microbial bioactive metabolites. Therefore, the gut microbiota is likely to act as middle man for, at least, some of the green tea benefits on health. Many health promoting effects of green tea seems to be related to the inter-relation between green tea and gut microbiota. Green tea has proven to be able to correct the microbial dysbiosis that appears during several conditions such as obesity or cancer. On the other hand, tea compounds influence the growth of bacterial species involved in inflammatory processes such as the release of LPS or the modulation of IL production; thus, influencing the development of different chronic diseases. There are many studies trying to link either green tea or green tea phenolic compounds to health benefits via gut microbiota. In this review, we tried to summarize the most recent research in the area.
Highlights
Green tea has been related to multiple health benefits and some of them are dependent on an inter-play with gut microbes
Tea compounds are able to correct dysbiosis originated by high-fat diets and to influence the growth of some bacterial species involved in lipid or bile salts metabolism
In the case of inflammatory diseases and cancer, green tea reduces the production of pro-inflammatory substances and influences inflammatory pathways; usually green tea compounds have been shown to correct the microbial dysbiosis associated with these diseases
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Health benefits derived from tea-microbiota inter-play could result from direct effect of microbial polyphenol metabolites or from an indirect effect derived from stimulation of specific beneficial gut microbes [7]. In a human intervention where healthy volunteers were given green tea, authors found that alpha diversity was increased and associated with tea drinking [27] They found an increase in Firmicutes and a decrease in Bacteroidetes, which goes in opposite direction to what other studies have found. Zhou et al [29] demonstrated how several metabolic pathways were altered in rats after a 6-month treatment with green tea polyphenols They observed a decrease in carbohydrate energy scavenging pathways, a decrease in bile acid synthesis pathways, fatty acids absorption, and a higher production of hexoses and vitamins, along with an altered metabolism of amino acids.
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