Foundation hopes to market pill based on tea by 2025
Researcher José António Batista, with a doctorate in analytical biochemistry, hopes that a pill, based on green tea from the Azores, which he says reduces the infectious nature of the Covid-19 virus, will be on the market in two years time.
Working out of the Gaspar Frutuoso Foundation, Batista suggests that the tea can be “another way of attacking the virus” (even a complement for those taking any of the vaccines).
The Gaspar Frutuoso Foundation signed a protocol today, at the University of the Azores, with the regional secretary of agriculture and rural development, under which around €40,000 will be provided by the Azorean government to meet the costs of the research process.
Batista explains that the tea enzyme blocks the process of reproduction, ensuring the virus doesn’t spread.
Anyone can drink the tea in its traditional liquid form, or take it as a pill.
The product “will boost the economy, and the region itself”, muses Batista.
Says Lusa, the specialist has been involved in several studies on green and black tea from the Azores. Along with Italy, the archipelago is the only region in Europe that produces tea.
Batista has identified, for example, that the green tea from the region has a substance that promotes cognitive functions, can combat dementia like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, and increase creativity.
After studying teas from around the world, he says he has come to the conclusion that tea from the Azores can be superior to the others in polyphenol content – polyphenols being micronutrients that naturally occur in plants.
Source material: LUSA
