Extracts from green tea may boost a range of cognitive functions, with particular benefits observed for short term memory, report researchers from Japan.
Two grams per day of a green tea powder for three months were associated with significant improvements in the Mini-Mental State Examination (Japanese version) score of 12 elderly nursing home residents with cognitive dysfunction.
“These results support the findings of previous epidemiological studies, and additionally demonstrate that green tea improves cognitive function or reduces the progression of cognitive dysfunction even at the relatively low catechin and theanine concentrations that can be obtained from ordinary levels of daily green tea intake,” wrote scientists from the University of Shizuoka and Ito En Ltd in the journal Nutrients .