Tea Sippers

In results that were presented to the 162nd meeting of the Society for General Microbiology in Scotland, researchers in Egypt have discovered yet another amazing property of green tea. This time, green tea appears to make the antibiotics you might take three times more effective.

These researchers started from the premise of concern about the effect of green tea on the efficacy of antibiotics because green tea is a very popular drink in Egypt. They thought the tea might interfere with the medicines.

However, they found instead that the tea made the bacteria more susceptible even when low concentrations of green tea were used. The study tested green tea and antibiotics on twenty-eight different bacteria that belonged to two different classes. The tea enhanced the medicines’ effects every time.

In a quote from Dr. Mervat Kassem of Alexandria University, “Our results show that we should consider more seriously the natural products we consume in our everyday life.” All I could think was, “DUH!”

Source: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Health/2008/03/31/green_tea_boosts_antibiotic_effectiveness/1574/