Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Review Article | OPEN ACCESS

Health benefits of theanine in green tea: A review

Yue-Rong Liang¹, Chang Liu¹, Li-Ping Xiang², Xin-Qiang Zheng¹

¹Zhejiang University Tea Research Institute, Hangzhou 310058; ²Guizhou Tea and Tea Products Quality Supervision and Inspection Center, Zunyi 563100, China.

For correspondence:- Xin-Qiang Zheng Email: xqzheng@zju.edu.cn Tel:+8657188982704

Received: 9 May 2015 Accepted: 7 September 2015 Published: 31 October 2015

Citation: Liang Y, Liu C, Xiang L, Zheng X. Health benefits of theanine in green tea: A review. Trop J Pharm Res 2015; 14(10):1943-1949 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v14i10.29

© 2015 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Theanine is an amide exclusively present in tea and some fungi, and is an important bioactive component of tea. The bioactive effects of theanine include antitumour, anti-diabetic, antihypertensive, anti-stress activities, and the ability to improve cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It also has protective effect on nerve cells against damage induced by environmental neurotoxins as well as on liver from injury induced by excessive alcohol intake. The bioactive functions of theanine as well as its pharmacokinetics are presented in this review.

Keywords: Theanine, Pharmacokinetics, Pharmacology, Bioactive properties