As the head of science at the international school of geneva I get increasingly frustrated at the media still continuing to talk about antioxidents as though they are an important part of our daily eating regime. Twenty years ago there was a great deal of enthusiasm for possible benefits of antioxident treatment for certain diseases including Alzhiemers. As time has gone on and research and understanding has progressed that enthusiasm has largely diminished. At the same time the supplements industry latched on to this magical cure for ageing and promoted their products with a great deal of pseudo science. This was latched onto by a media that are obsessed with quick fix medical stories and the myth of the benefits of antioxidents still continues today.

In my teaching job I have to battle to dispell myths such as this and get students to actually look for the evidence behind an issue.I look forward to next weeks story where, if I understand correctly from this mornings trailer you are going to look at how effective antioxidents actually are.

Mike Winter International School of Geneva La Chataigneraie

Despite of the relatively high yield of Epigallocatechin gallate in some green teas one would probably have to drink 200 cups of green tea to get the significant level of EGCG to have any effects on Alzheimer etc. Assumeing there is any effect at all. PS. What about Japanese Green Tea and nuclear contamination from the Fukushima fallout ? ABE should have had a look at that too.