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Chemicals found in green tea and other plants may prevent the brain damage that occurs after strokes and other brain injuries, say researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Researchers tested the effects in the laboratory of two plant-derived chemicals on brain cells under stress - gallotannin and nobotanin B. Gallotannin is found in green tea and other plants. Nobotanin B, a similar chemical, comes from the Brazilian glory bush. Both chemicals block PARG activity. Both gallotannin and nobotanin B also block brain cell death from chemicals that normally overly stimulate the cells.

The PARP/PARG system is activated by the release of cell-damaging oxygen radicals, a phenomenon called oxidative stress, and when cells become overexcited by various toxins.

Blockers of PARP activity have already been used to prevent brain cell death but as PARG blockers, gallotannin and nobotanin B were 10 to 1,000 times more potent in preventing brain cell death caused by oxygen radicals. Gallotannin was 100 times more effective than antioxidants, which are chemicals that can soak up the toxic oxygen molecules.

At the life-saving doses, neither chemical had cell-damaging side effects, according to the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (though 2001;98:12227). Gallotannin did however cause some ill effects just above its most effective dose.