Dr. Jafari and her team of researchers recently showed that green tea polyphenols (GTP), consumed at high dosages, can impair development and reproductive fitness in fruit flies. Fruit fly embryo and larvae that were exposed to 10 mg/mL of GTP showed the following results:
- Larvae were slower to develop, were born smaller and exhibited a dramatic decline in the number of emerged offspring
- Flies were more susceptible to starvation and heat stress but were protected against dehydration
- Female offspring showed decreased reproductive output and a 17 percent reduction in lifespan; males were unaffected
- Both sexes showed morphological abnormalities in reproductive organs
Because of the multitude of shared pathways between organisms, this study suggests that there may be adverse effects when human consume green tea in excess.
The study is published in the Journal of Functional Foods.
Press release: http://news.uci.edu/health/green-tea-impairs-development-reproduction-in-fruit-flies-uci-study-finds/
Contributing authors: Terry Lopez, Hoang Pham, Julia Barbour, Phillip Tran, Benjamin Van Nguyen, Sean Hogan, Richelle Homo, Volkan Coskun and Samuel Schriner