Daily consumption of an aqueous green tea extract supplement does not impair liver function or alter cardiovascular disease risk biomarkers in healthy men.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Plant Extracts.

The researchers conducted a placebo-controlled parallel study to evaluate the chronic effects of GTP on liver function and CVD risk biomarkers in healthy men.

Why It Was Studied

At the beginning and end of the intervention period, the researchers collected blood samples from fasting subjects and measured vascular tone using Laser Doppler Iontophoresis.

Who Took Part

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers, adults and middle-aged adults, men only.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and parallel-group study.

Because people in this Plant Extracts study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Plant Extracts, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Plant Extracts group a baseline to be compared against.

Groups ran in parallel: each of the participants stayed in one arm throughout.

What Was Measured

At the beginning and end of the intervention period, the researchers collected blood samples from fasting subjects and measured vascular tone using Laser Doppler Iontophoresis.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Biomarkers, Camellia sinensis, Cardiovascular Diseases, Catechin, Chromans, Creatinine and Liver.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Plant Extracts.

The publication is from 2009 (The Journal of nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.