ex_banana-eater
New Member
He must be referring to this study done in rats:[b said:Quote[/b] ]Green tea has compounds that block COMT. I stopped using as much green tea when I found that they were anti-androgenic. They not only block androgen at the receptor, thay also apear to downregulate androgen receptors.
Green tea is basically an anti-endocrine factor. It seems to reduce the effects of all steroid hormones. I don't mean to freak anybody out, it's just that the flavones (especially epigallocatechin gallate) are well known to reduce the actions of endogenous androgens (and estrogens) as well as even lowering testosterone levels themselves.
Anyway, my point is that, you may never see any significant effect of drinking green tea on muscle gains. Then again, we know that it is having an antagonistic effect, however small, in a direction oposite to what we want with respect to testosterone.
Cultures that consume a lot of green tea of also known to have fewer androgenic "manifestations" both normal (body hair, muscle mass, etc) as well as fewer pathologic manifestations (prostate problems, and other cancers associated with steroid hormones).
"Significantly reduced food intake, bodyweight". Those are the reasons why Green Tea lowered the hormones. The full study entails the massive injections given to the rats. Rats respond very well to FAS inhibitors, and that is most likely why their food intake went down, and the cause of the drop in leptin and sex hormones.[b said:Quote[/b] ]Endocrinology 2000 Mar;141(3):980-7 Related Articles, Links
Modulation of endocrine systems and food intake by green tea epigallocatechin gallate.
Kao YH, Hiipakka RA, Liao S.
Ben May Institute for Cancer Research, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Tang Center for Herbal Medicine Research, University of Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA.
Green tea polyphenols, especially the catechin, (-)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), have been proposed as a cancer chemopreventative based on a variety of laboratory studies. For clear assessment of the possible physiological effects of green tea consumption, we injected pure green tea catechins ip into rats and studied their acute effects on endocrine systems. We found that EGCG, but not related catechins, significantly reduced food intake; body weight; blood levels of testosterone, estradiol, leptin, insulin, insulin-like growth factor I, LH, glucose, cholesterol, and triglyceride; as well as growth of the prostate, uterus, and ovary. Similar effects were observed in lean and obese male Zucker rats, suggesting that the effect of EGCG was independent of an intact leptin receptor. EGCG may interact specifically with a component of a leptin-independent appetite control pathway. Endocrine changes induced by parenteral administration of EGCG may relate to the observed growth inhibition and regression of human prostate and breast tumors in athymic mice treated with EGCG as well as play a role in the mechanism by which EGCG inhibits cancer initiation and promotion in various animal models of cancer.
BTW Characterizing the Asian race.. good one.