But what of these purported health benefits? A visit to the NIH library at PubMed Central only strengthened the love; many Chinese researchers in multiple scholarly articles provided a slew scientific reasons to make mine Pu-erh in the a.m.
The evidence was a regular alphabet soup of enzymes and genes and proteins favorably enhanced or suppressed by this brew and its metabolic byproducts of fermentation. I’ll leave the anti-obesity praise to Dr. Oz who, incidentally, is looking downright anorectic to me. Rather, consider some of the anti-tumor aspects of Pu-erh enumerated in an article(1) supported by grants from the“Scientific Puer Action” program.
If you remember the cell cycle from your intro to biology
course, you know that actively dividing cells go through a three-step process
wherein they grow, replicate their DNA and package it into chromosomes prior to
splitting into two (hopefully) identical new cells. If these orchestrated steps—G1, S, and
G2—could be arrested in cancer cells but preserved in normal cells by a
non-toxic, side-effect free substance, we would have the quintessence of cancer
chemoprevention.
Dr. Zhao and colleagues examined the effects of Pu-erh tea
extracts on mouse tumor cell lines and control mouse embryo cells, and that is
exactly what they demonstrated. Essence
of Pu-erh stopped the tumor cell cycle but did not affect the normal cells. This effect was quite different than the
anti-oxidant effects of unfermented green and black tea, suggesting that the
molecular byproducts of its microorganism-based fermentation may be the origin
of Pu-erh’s anti-cancer effect.Well make mine Pu-erh! Great flavor, way more nuanced and full-bodied than green, and stops tumor cell cycles dead in their tracks!
(1)
Zhao,L, et al.
Pu-erh Tea Inhibits Tumor Cell Growth by Down-Regulating Mutant p-53. Int J Mol Sci. 2011; 12(11): 7581–7593.
