Study Finds Green Tea, Matcha, and Black Tea Effective in Inactivating Omicron Sub-Variants
In a recent study, it has been claimed that green tea, matcha, and black tea can effectively inactivate highly transmissible and contagious sub-variants of the Omicron variant. Tea catechins, biologically active chemicals found in tea, were previously shown to effectively deactivate the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Published in the journal Scientific Reports, the study involved healthy volunteers consuming candies containing green tea or black tea. Saliva collected from these volunteers immediately after consuming the candy showed a significant decrease in virus infectivity in vitro.
Osam Mazda from the Department of Immunology at Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine in Japan, commented, “We found that all the Omicron subvariants that we tested were efficiently inactivated by treatment with green tea, Matcha green tea, and black tea.”
Mazda also highlighted the potential significance of this discovery, stating, “The study may suggest a molecular basis for the potential usefulness of these compounds in the suppression of mutant viruses that could emerge in the future and cause the next pandemic.”
While it is known that viruses infect salivary glands and other oral tissues, the virus-inactivating effect was not observed in saliva collected from healthy volunteers 5 or 15 minutes after candy consumption. This could be due to the high flow rates of saliva in healthy individuals.
The researchers suggested, “A candy containing green tea or black tea may be useful for inactivating the virus if infected persons consume it. This could decrease the virus load in the oral cavity and gastrointestinal tract of the infected person, as well as prevent the spread of the virus from infected individuals to nearby non-infected persons.”
The study also identified specific tea catechins, such as (-)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and its derivative theaflavin-3,3′-di-O-digallate (TFDG), as particularly effective in suppressing the infectivity of specific Omicron subvariants. It was found that EGCG and TFDG inhibited the interaction between the spike protein RBD (receptor-binding domain) of the BA.1 variant and ACE2.
In-silico analysis further suggested that specific amino acid substitutions in RBDs crucially influenced the binding of EGCG and TFDG to the RBDs, indicating varying susceptibility of each Omicron subvariant to these tea compounds.
