Green Tea, the Beverage May Speeds Up the Healing of Chronic Back Pain

Green tea may have a therapeutic and positive effect in ameliorated symptoms and treatment of chronic back pain, some scientists suggested.

Chronic back pain is a condition of musculoskeletal disorders(MSDs) of the spine that lasts more than 3 months, caused by various factors, including bone fractures, muscle or ligament injury, arthritis, herniated discs. aging,...

Certain symptoms are associated with patients with chronic back pain, including loss of bowel or bladder control if the condition is on the lower back, numbness, tingling, or weakness in one or both legs and constant pain that gets worse at night.

According to the statistic provided by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare,

* In 2014–15, an estimated 3.7 million Australians (16%, or 1 in 6 people) had chronic back problems.

* The prevalence of the condition increases with age up to before declining slightly in aged 75 and over.

*More than three-quarters (77%) of people with chronic back problems were of working age (15–64), and

* In 2008–09, around 1.8% of total health-care expenditure in Australia ($1.2 billion) was attributed to back problems, causing a significant burden to the economy in the country.

Some researchers in the finding of mutated genes which have strong influence in the onset of chronic back pain suggested, " ...only a minority of the genetic influences was caused by genes affecting disc degeneration suggesting that genes involved in pain perception, signaling, and psychological processing (Foulkes and Wood 2008), and genetic variants of immune genes (Solovieva et al. 2004b) contribute to the proportion of heritability of chronic back pain".



These results indicated that genetic mutation inherited from the parent may have a minor effect in contributing to the early development of the condition.

Green tea is a precious drink processes numbers of health benefit known to almost everyone in Asia and the Western world.


Application of biologically active polyphenol epigallocatechin 3-gallate (EGCG) demonstrated a significant effect in reduced back pain through facilitating the anti-inflammatory and anti-catabolic activity in patients with intervertebral disc (IVD) disease due to age-related changes in the adult disc in the induction of back pain.

According to the study by the Institute for Biomechanics (D-HEST), ETH Zurich ingestion of green tea EGCG on back pain patients, human IVD cells isolated from patients undergoing surgery due to degenerative disc disease (n = 34) and cultured in 2D or 3D indicated that the phytochemical inhibited levels of inflammatory response activated by IL-1β, a cytokine protein produced by macrophages, with function in contributing the inflammatory pain hypersensitivity in the site of infection observed by the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR), western blotting, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), immunofluorescence and transcription factor assay.

Furthermore, the application also displayed a strong effect on reducing expression of
p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases in mediated inflammatory factors of IL-1β in responded to stress stimuli.

Also, according to the Institute for Biomechanics (D-HEST), in the investigation of the analgesic properties of EGCG, by the von Frey filament test in Sprague-Dawley rats (n = 60), green tea EGCG injection also significantly inhibited the expression of pro-inflammatory mediators as expressed in above and reduced matrix metalloproteinases which have been found to associate to pro-inflammatory cytokines, chemokines and other proteins to regulate varied aspects of inflammation and immunity.

Moreover, in the radiculopathy pain component, researchers also indicated that EGCG inhibited the inflammation in the precipitated back pain through modulating the activity of IRAK-1 in glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity in skeletal muscle and p38, c-Jun N-terminal kinases (JNK) and nuclear factor NF-κB in response to stress stimuli.

Some researchers indicated that back pain may also be induced by muscle degeneration and impairment nerve injury, leading to increased levels of reactive oxygen species in the induction of tissue apoptosis.

In crushing of the sciatic nerve induced back pain in a tested animal, application of green tea EGCG improved motor function in the toe spread and foot positioning and gained in the percentage motor deficit.

More importantly, EGCG expressed a significant effect in the recovery of sensory innervation in neuropathic pain-like syndrome and improved muscle tissues from injured limb with severe histopathological alterations at the end of week 3 post-surgery in treated animals.


According to the RT-PCR assay, EGCG treatment also normalized the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, the abnormal ratio of the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio has been found to associate with the induction of nerve cell apoptosis as well as inhibiting levels of p53 with function in regulated the cell death cycle at days 3 and 7 post-surgery.

These results demonstrated an important effect of green tea EGCG in the enhanced functional recovery, by protecting muscle fibers from cellular death, and improving morphological recovery in the skeletal muscle after nerve injuries.

However, in the study of caffeine activity in the modulation of pain perception in chronic pain states of 131 patients with chronic low back pain (64 men and 67 women; mean age = 42.1 years; mean duration of pain = 6.1 years) referred to a multidisciplinary pain clinic over a 2-year period, researchers found that caffeine is not related to the global experience of pain and disability in patients with chronic low back pain, although high caffeine use may be embedded in the context of other unhealthy lifestyle behaviors.

Taken all together, green tea and its bioactive component epigallocatechin 3-gallate (EGCG) may be considered functional foods in reduced back pain caused by physical damage of the spine and injured nerve cells.

Intake of green tea supplement should be taken with exceptional care as some cases of liver acute toxicity have been reported in medical literature.


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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.
Sources
(1) Epigallocatechin 3-gallate suppresses interleukin-1β-induced inflammatory responses in intervertebral disc cells in vitro and reduces radiculopathic pain in rats by Krupkova O1, Sekiguchi M, Klasen J, Hausmann O, Konno S, Ferguson SJ, Wuertz-Kozak K.(PubMed)
(2) (-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) attenuates functional deficits and morphological alterations by diminishing apoptotic gene overexpression in skeletal muscles after sciatic nerve crush injury by Renno WM1, Al-Maghrebi M, Al-Banaw A.(PubMed)
(3) Caffeine and chronic low back pain by Currie SR1, Wilson KG, Gauthier ST. (PubMed)
(4) Genetic Factors Modulating Chronic Back Pain by Julia Metzner and Irmgard Tegeder