Figure 1. Antibacterial activity of saliva collected from (a) male and (b) female athletes at various time points.

The antibacterial activity of saliva was presented as: (%)  =  [(CFU of control−CFU of experiment)/CFU of control] X 100. All assays were performed in triplicate. Significant difference between ingestion of water (white bar) and green tea (slashed bar) at each sampling time was set at *P<0.05. Significant difference between each sampling time and the initial condition (BT) was set at ^#P<0.05 and ^## P<0.01. CFU, colony-forming units; BT, before training; AT, after training; Rec, 30 min of recovery after ingestion of water or tea.