Hope springs from the tea plantation – relief for Huntington’s patients
The research group led by Professor Wanker of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) recently presented its findings at an international conference on diseases of the nervous system in Berlin.
The substance EGCG, which can be extracted from green tea, slows clump formation of the protein huntingtin.
Wikimedia Commons (author: wikimol). Use of the picture under the terms of GNU Free Documentation licence.
Wikimedia Commons (author: wikimol). Use of the picture under the terms of GNU Free Documentation licence.
In Huntington’s disease, the protein huntingtin accumulates in the nuclei of nerve cells. Owing to a genetic defect, the protein loses its normal structure, preventing the cells from being able to break it down. As a result, the huntingtin protein proliferates to such high concentrations that it inhibits vital metabolic processes in the cells: The nerve cells are gradually poisoned. The latest results of the NGFN research project show that EGCG slows down the aggregation process, thus providing scientific proof of the therapeutic effect of green tea.
EGCG and other components of green tea have already been tested in clinical studies on the treatment of other diseases, particularly cancer, and have proven to be very well tolerated by human patients – a property that makes EGCG a highly suitable drug candidate for the treatment of Huntington’s chorea.
Huntington’s disease, familiarly known as Saint Vitus’s dance, was first described in 1872 by the American physician George Huntington. The disease is generally considered to be incurable and, once it takes hold, victims can expect to be increasingly disabled by violent, involuntary movements of their limbs and face throughout the course of their lives. The neurodegenerative disease also affects the patients’ memory and general mental faculties, ultimately also affecting physiological functions, to the extent that the act of swallowing, for instance, becomes impossible.
