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Antimutagenic Activity of Green Versus White Tea

The ability of green versus white tea to protect against in vitro DNA damage caused by a cooked chicken carcinogen (heterocyclic amine).

July 9, 2012 |
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Supplementary Info

Antimutagenic Activity of Green Versus White Tea, 4.7 out of 5 based on 6 ratings

Sources Cited

Santana-Rios G, Orner GA, Amantana A, Provost C, Wu SY, Dashwood RH. Potent antimutagenic activity of white tea in comparison with green tea in the Salmonella assay. Mutat Res. 2001 Aug 22; 495(1-2):61-74.

Norrish AE, Ferguson LR, Knize MG, Felton JS, Sharpe SJ, Jackson RT. Heterocyclic amine content of cooked meat and risk of prostate cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst. 1999 Dec 1; 91(23):2038-44.

Acknowledgements

Images thanks to Prenn and Edgar181 via Wikimedia Commons.

Transcript

The same leaves of the same plant are used to make white, green, oolong, and black tea— the primary difference is how they are processed, which white being the least processed and black being the most.
In one of the videos I made a few years ago I talked about how the tea with the most antioxidant power was green tea… — unless you added lemon, in which case white tea pulls ahead, but what about going a step further and testing their respective abilities to prevent DNA damage.
 Previous studies have shown that “The degree of protection against DNA damage by tea appeared to be related to the extent of processing, since green tea was generally more effective than black tea. This suggested the possibility that higher antimutagenic or anticarcinogenic activity might be expected from teas that have undergone the least amount of processing.” So they compared the “antimutagenic activity of white tea in comparison with green tea.
Bacteria, just like every other living creature, uses the same DNA that we do. So one common test to see if something is carcinogenic, is to drip it on Salmonella growing in a petri dish and see if it causes DNA mutations, and to test if something protects DNA, you add that along with the carcinogen and see if there are fewer mutations.
The carcinogen they picked for this test was a doozy,
2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenyl-imidazo-4,5-b-pyridine, a heterocyclic amine found mostly in grilled, fried, and broiled chicken, added with green tea or white tea to see what would happen.
 Here’s with the green tea. By dripping on green tea you could drop the number of DNA mutations caused by the carcinogen by more than half. But here's the white. Could completely 100% block the DNA damage.
 And the longer you brew it the better. This is against another cooked meat carcinogen. You'll often see a recommendation to only brew white tea one or two minutes, but if you go out to five, you can get significantly more DNA protection…

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Serena

To help out on the site please email volunteer@nutritionfacts.org

Dr. Michael Greger

Doctor's Note

The antioxidant data with that interesting lemon juice result can be found in Green Tea vs. White. Other interesting videos on tea include Dietary Brain Wave Alteration and Cannabis Receptors & Food. The longer-the-better brewing time for white tea didn't surprise me, but this did: Cold Steeping Green Tea. Another way to maximize the phytonutrient absorption in tea is to eat it; see Is Matcha Good for You? and A Better Breakfast. One can overdo it, though: Overdosing on Tea. Other ways to protect one's DNA include eating broccoli, avoiding bacon, not overdoing stevia, and eating a plant-based diet (see Repairing DNA Damage and Research Into Reversing Aging).  

Isn't caffeinated tea dehydrating though? That's the topic of tomorrow's NutritionFacts.org video-of-the-day. While you're waiting, there are an additional 1,000+ topics to explore.

For more context, check out my associated blog post, Is Caffeinated Tea Really Dehydrating?.

  • Michael Greger M.D.

    The antioxidant data with that interesting lemon juice result can be found in Green Tea vs. White. Other interesting videos on tea include Dietary Brain Wave Alteration and Cannabis Receptors & Food. The longer-the-better brewing time for white tea didn’t surprise me, but this did: Cold Steeping Green Tea. Another way to maximize the phytonutrient absorption in tea is to eat it; see Is Matcha Good for You? and A Better Breakfast. One can overdo it, though: Overdosing on Tea. Other ways to protect one’s DNA include eating broccoli, avoiding bacon, not overdoing stevia, and eating a plant-based diet (see Repairing DNA Damage and Research Into Reversing Aging).  Isn’t caffeinated tea dehydrating though? That’s the topic of tomorrow’s NutritionFacts.org video-of-the-day. While you’re waiting, there are an additional 1,000+ topics to explore.

    • HemoDynamic, M.D.

      Dr. G if you keep teaching us how to protect our bodies form all the mutagens we are going to be the youngest looking old people in the world.

      You are our David Copperfield–but instead of keeping the secret to yourself you have taught us how to be our own Fountain of Youth ;-)

  • http://www.facebook.com/gregmil Greg Milette

    How do you think brewing for 5 minutes hot compares to cold brewing overnight in terms of the resulting antimutagenic activity?

  • DLS

    An anti-mutagenicity assay in a petri dish says nothing at all about how white tea may function to protect DNA in a body consuming the tea. This sort of exp’t is at best a means of “observation”, the first step in the scientific method. So, an interesting hypothesis has been generated: white tea contains a substance(s) which can act as an anti-mutagen. But is this ingredient absorbed from the human gut? If so, does the active ingredient get past the intestinal enzyme defenses? Past the liver without being altered? Is it rapidly excreted by the kidneys before it has a chance to do any DNA defending? Is its dilution in the whole body past the point that it has any action? Lots to find out before assuming that it does anything at all. Who knows–perhaps it is metabolized by the liver into a compound that damages DNA. Nature is complex.

    • SJ M.D.

      However interesting. Drip a little milk to see if there is any protection. Nope.

  • DLS

    >Isn’t caffeinated tea dehydrating though?

    No; if it were, the water-pill folks would go out of business. And believe it or not, I have heard people say, “Water is a diuretic! It makes me pee!”

  • HemoDynamic, M.D.

    Guess I’m back to liking the white variants of tea, not that I have been overindulging in heterocyclic amines but I’ll bet it’s protective to almost anything that’s mutagenic, Including the Incredible Hulk.  That’s why I believe in the Incredible Bulk–you know what I mean. ;-O 

    • SJ M.D.

      Dr Dynamic, I had a professor in gastroenterology, who said that if you take a patient, and let the patient defecate on a white piece of paper from 1 meter above, you can make rather exact diagnosis of their intestine ailment, you dont necessarily need fancy things like colonoscopy, biopsy and so forth.

      • SJ M.D.

        For obvious reasons it was not performed though !

        • HemoDynamic, M.D.

          Dr. McDougall taught me about a famed surgeon that lived in Africa for about 30 years from Britain (I cannot remember his name), and he learned something very profound: 

          Big poop, Small Hospital; Small Poop, Big Hospital.

          • Michael Greger M.D.

             The inimitable Dr. Burkitt!

          • HemoDynamic, M.D.

            That’s it!! Thanks!

          • SJ M.D.

            Okay – :-) :-)

          • SJ M.D.

            Stephen Smith M.D.  (Bellevue Hospital, New York) said 100 years ago: The art of growing old is to get a bad stomach, and take care of that bad stomach.

  • Laurie Jess

    Thx ! and back to white tea for me!

  • Dan Brunell

    Drs. Beliveau and Gingras’ work shows a wide variety of polyphenols in green tea from different sources.  Japanese green tea shows a much higher content,  A list can be found at 
    http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?t=8070 or in their “Foods that Fight Cancer” book.  Since the winner of their tests has 5 times the amount of ECGC than the lowest Chinese teas, it poses the questions of validity of the green vs. white tea relationship unless it was done with a widely grown, controlled group of teas.  FYI the green tea champ can be purchased from a Montreal company.

  • Kenton

    Well done!

  • http://www.facebook.com/cesare.civetta Cesare Civetta

    Dr. Greger,

    Would you please comment about gynostemma tea and its recommended consumption and comparison to the other best teas etc? thanks,
    cesare civetta

  • mbglife

    Years ago I either read or heard in an online talk, that sencha and jasmine green teas had roughly the same level of anti-cancer benefits. But, when the two were both consumed daily–not necessarily at the same time– the protection level almost doubled. I can’t relocate this citation. Is anyone familiar with it.

    Also, in various studies that cite the number of cups of green tea consumed, in Japan or in the US, they always refer to cups. What’s a cup? Is it a tiny 2 or 3oz cup or a western 4 or 5 ounce teacup or an 8 to 10 or more ounce cup that is commonly assumed for drinks like coffee? I’m surprised that researchers don’t cite their findings in ounces or some other standard measure?

  • Neal

    Looks like they took four different white teas and ran them up against one green. The chart used here takes the best performing white against the single green tea. The freshness issue is major for green teas (perhaps whites as well) according to some studies. So is it really a worthwhile comparison? It’s hard-impossible in fact-to get great and fresh longjing in the U.S. Chinese storage of teas is also very often quite bad. Chinese teas can have immense levels of pesticides as well. Perhaps comparing a very fresh Japanese green tea which sometimes can be obtained quite fresh with great storage might be a good idea here.

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