Beijing, July 29 (IANS): Your love for green tea may help improve memory as well as insulin resistance in the brain caused by a high-fat and high-fructose diet, researchers say.

A study, involving mice, showed that green tea contains an ingredient known as EGCG (epigallocatechin-3-gallate), the most abundant catechin and biologically active component.

This component has the potential to alleviate insulin resistance -- a precursor to type II diabetes -- that is induced by obesity as well as improve age-related cognitive decline, accompanied by peripheral inflammation, the researchers said.

"Green tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world after water, and is grown in at least 30 countries," said Xuebo Liu from the Northwest A&F University in Yangling, China.

"The ancient habit of drinking green tea may be a more acceptable alternative to medicine when it comes to combatting obesity, insulin resistance, and memory impairment," Liu added.

Previous research pointed to the potential of EGCG to treat a variety of human diseases such as bone marrow disorders, reducing the kidney toxicity and damage caused by cancer drug, as well as some heart conditions.

For the study, published in The FASEB Journal, the team divided three-month-old male mice into three groups based on diet: 1) a control group fed with a standard diet 2) a group fed with an high-fat and high-fructose (HFFD) diet and 3) a group fed with an HFFD diet and 2 grams of EGCG per liter of drinking water.

The researchers monitored the mice for 16 weeks and found that those fed with HFFD had a higher final body weight than the control mice, and a significantly higher final body weight than the HFFD+EGCG mice.