Each subject took 150 mL of green tea four times a
day (09:00, 11:00, 13:00 and 15:00) for four weeks.
They were asked to abstain from wine, other types
of tea and special dietary additives, but to otherwise
continue their usual daily diet throughout the trial period. Compliance was checked by one of our investigators (HS) from Monday to Saturday. Compliance
on Sundays was con¢rmed by direct questioning.
Blood specimens were taken just before the start of the
study (baseline) and two and four weeks into the study.
All the samples were taken after a 12-h fast to rule
out the acute e¡ect of green tea intake. Heparinized
blood for antioxidant capacity and soluble cellular
adhesion molecule (sCAM) measurement, EDTA plasma for oxidized LDL (ox-LDL) measurement and serum
for lipid pro¢le and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein
(hs-CRP) measurement were collected in a sodium
heparin tube, a K2EDTA tube and an SST tube,
respectively (all from Becton DickinsonVacutainer Systems, NJ, USA).