Yerba Mate

Hello Reader:

For a week, I gathered information about a drink ingredient used at the restaurant In which I am currently employed. The ingredient is called Yerba Mate, for more info just click on yerba mate. I attached a link to Wikipedia. However, I am warning you, I do not fully trust wiki, but it will give you a quick overview of what yerba mate is and where it is originated. Anyways, I was reading about it and I realized yerba mate has a few interesting health benefits. At that moment, I thought it was fascinating and then I started gathering information.

This post consists of a quick summary of what I found. Nevertheless, at the end of the quick summary I wrote my resources. The only difficulty you may encounter with the resources I used to do my research is that I searched them using my NJIT library account. Therefore, I do not know if you will be able to read the resources completely.

Yerba Mate (Illex Paraguariensis)

Mate is green plant used as an herbal tea. The tea is widely consumed in South America, countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Some of the health benefits of the tea are: high in antioxidant activity, weight management and obesity, and carcinogenesis.

The chemical isolation consist of

A.    Caffeoyl derivatives

a.       Chlorogenic acid

b.      Caffeic acid

c.       Dicaffeoyl quinic acid

B.     Flavonoids

a.       Rutin

b.      Quercetin

c.       Kaempferol

C.     Xanthines

a.       Teophylline

b.      Theobromine

c.       Caffeine

D.    Saponins

a.       Triterpenoid

E.     Minerals

a.       Aluminum

b.      Chromium

c.       Copper

d.      Iron

e.       Manganese

Resources- Here is the list of the 4 articles I summarized about Yerba Mate. However, I encourage you to continue searching because there is a lot of information about yerba mate. I did not include everything I found but among it you can find  mate can be used to prevent epileptic seizure and mate extracts can be used for organic pharmaceutical medicine or can be added to processed food to increase its nutritional quality .

“Applied Nutritional investigation: Association of Mate Tea intake and dietary intervention and effects on oxidative stress biomarkers of dyslipidemic subjects”

            In summary, its a 90 day test of yerba mate tea on 74 dsylipidemic volunteers. The subjects were divided into 3 groups: Mate Tea (MT), Dietary Intervention (DI), and Mate Tea with dietary intervention (MD). MT and MD consumed one liter per day of mate tea. MD and DI were instructed a healthy diet, which consist of increasing their intake of fruit, legumes, and vegetables and decrease cholesterol, saturated and unsaturated fat. They were assessed at the beginning of the study and after in the 20th, 40th, 60th and 90th day. The results showed an increase in serum antioxidant and a decrease in cholesterol. First, regardless or independently of the dietary intervention, the subjects increased their blood antioxidant, which lowered oxidative stress. In the other hand, with dietary intervention, they increased the antioxidant capacity and decreased the consumption of total and saturated fats. In a like manner, these results were consistent with result from other studies and similar beverage rich in antioxidant, such as green tea. In the same study, they also found a low GHS peroxidase concentration, which is considered a risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Additionally, a slightly increase in serum paraoxonase 1 (PON1) was shown. PON1 acts as a protection against CVD. At last, they suggest a more strict dietary approach is needed to observe a greater increase in PON1.

“Antioxidant activity of Illex Paraguariensis and related species”

            In summary, they examine antioxidant activity of yerba mate and related species. The related species are the following:

·         I Theezans C. Martis ex Reisseck

·         I Dumosa Keisseck Var Dumosa

·         I Argentina Lillo

·         I Brevicuspis Reiseeck

·         I Pseudobuxux Reisseck

Additionally, they examine caffeoyl-derivatives. The results showed I Paraguariensis has the highest antioxidant activity. Also, antioxidant properties remain after the tea is prepared. At last, they speculate it can contribute to human antioxidant defense.

“Rearching on new species of ‘Mate’, (Illex Brevicuspis)”

            The study was taken to isolate, identify and quantify polyphenolic compounds in the plant. The chemical isolation they found was shown above. Nevertheless, they stated that the tea has high antioxidant activity, intestinal propulsion activity and showed no sign of toxicity.

“Yerba Mate Tea: A comprehensive Review on Chemistry, health implications, and technological considerations” This is my favorite article. The article is very complete in the sense that it has a complete list of all the chemical compounds in mate. In addition, it has a lot of charts with information and comparison with other teas.  

            The article is a review that presents the usage, chemistry, biological activities, health effects, and some technological consideration for processing yerba mate.  The final consideration of the article is mate diverse concentration of biological compounds, such as xanthenes, theobromine and theophylline are attributed to its health benefits. On top of that, its active compounds make it ideal for compound extraction and use it in foods and supplements. In conclusion, cancer development from mate can be a result of contaminants involve in the process procedures. As an alternative, a more optimized process  and good quality control is needed to eliminate contaminants.