NEW USE FOR TEA

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28980, 22 August 1959, Page 4

NEW USE FOR TEA

Protection From Strontium-90

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) CINCINNATI, August 20. Tea may hold the solution to the problem of protecting mankind against deadly nuclear fallout A Japanese scientist, Dr. Teisi Ukai, told a meeting of the American Pharmaceutical Association at Cincinnati yesterday that experiments had shown that tea —either ice or hot—reduced radioactivity in the bodies of rats. Dr. Ukai, the 63-year-old head of the Shizuoka PharmaceuticalCollege, said that the tannic acid found in tea joined with the harmful Strontium-90 to form an insoluble compound. This meant that the radioactive material in the body chemically joined with the tannic acid 'of the tea and passed through the body without being absorbed into the tissues. De Ukai said his tests on animals fed the tannic acid solution stored up 30 per cent, less Strontium in their bones than the animals on a water diet. Dr. Ukai reported to the convention that he had not tried his experiment on humans and did not have plans at (he present to do so. But, he said, his experiments had been “a shot in the arm" to Japan’s tea industry since a standard brew of green or black tea worked like a weak solution of tannic acid. Dr. Ukai said the biggest problem he faced at present was money to carry on his work.