The State University of New Jersey, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Department of Chemical Biology, Rutgers, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8020, USA.
Expert Opin Drug Metab Toxicol. 2012 Jun;8(6):677-89. doi: 10.1517/17425255.2012.681375. Epub 2012 Apr 18.
Tea, made from the dried leaves of the plant Camellia sinensis Theaceae, is a very popular beverage consumed worldwide. Recently, green tea extract-based dietary supplements have also been widely consumed for the acclaimed beneficial health effects, such as weight reduction. Although tea consumption is considered to be innocuous, the potential interactions between tea polyphenols and drugs have been demonstrated in studies in vitro and in vivo.
This article reviews the current literature on the chemistry and biotransformation of tea constituents, mainly catechins from green tea. The article also provides a review of their effects on the absorption, efflux, metabolism and elimination of different drugs.
Tea catechins may bind to certain drugs to affect their absorption and bioactivities. Tea catechins may inhibit the activities of drug-metabolizing enzymes and drug transporters or affect the expression of these proteins, either upregulation or downregulation. Although these effects have been demonstrated in studies in vitro and in animal models, such effects have only been observed in limited cases in humans at common doses of human tea consumption. The ingestion of tea catechins from dietary supplements, which could be in large bullet doses, may produce more profound effects on drug metabolism, and such effects with drugs need to be further investigated.
茶是由山茶科植物的干茶叶制成的一种非常受欢迎的饮品，在全世界范围内都有饮用。最近，基于绿茶提取物的膳食补充剂也因其被称赞的有益健康的功效，如减肥，而被广泛消费。尽管人们认为喝茶是无害的，但在体外和体内研究中已经证明了茶多酚与药物之间存在潜在的相互作用。
本文综述了茶叶成分（主要是绿茶中的儿茶素）的化学和生物转化的最新文献。文章还综述了它们对不同药物吸收、外排、代谢和消除的影响。
茶儿茶素可能与某些药物结合，影响其吸收和生物活性。茶儿茶素可能抑制药物代谢酶和药物转运蛋白的活性，或影响这些蛋白的表达，无论是上调还是下调。尽管这些影响在体外和动物模型中已经得到证实，但在人类常见的饮茶剂量下，仅在有限的情况下观察到这些影响。从膳食补充剂中摄入的茶儿茶素，其剂量可能很大，可能会对药物代谢产生更深远的影响，因此需要进一步研究这些影响与药物的关系。
