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Green tea's cancer-fighting ability great
Oct. 28, 2003 03:50 PM
The long-debated healthful benefits of green tea are now steeped in medical research and its findings.
Four research papers presented Tuesday at the American Association for Cancer Research conference in Phoenix show green tea is effective in fighting certain types of cancer, in addition to lowering cholesterol, preventing heart disease, boosting oral hygiene and possibly aiding in weight loss.
Drinking just two cups, but probably more like four cups, a day of green tea may retard the growth of certain tumor cells, researchers agreed. Green tea is made from leaves that are not fermented before drying.
Iman Hakim, a reseacher at the University of Arizona Cancer Center, showed that cigarette smokers who drank four cups a day of decaffeinated green tea for four months cut the oxidative stress caused by cigarettes.
"What we found was significant," she said, referring to a lesion measured in the urine of the 118 smokers in the study.
The research stopped short of finding that genes damaged from smoking can repaired by green tea, which is the subject of new research she and her colleagues are now doing.
Other research presented Tuesday by Jia-Sheng Wang showed green tea can prevent liver cancer, the third-leading cause of cancer deaths in the world. And Nurulain Zaveri, a researcher at SRI International in Menlo Park, Calif., found that green tea may not only prevent cancer but may become a chemotherapy drug for those with the disease.
But researchers reminded cancer patients to first consult their doctors.
"If you like it, you (probably) can continue to drink it," said Chung Shu Yang, chair of the chemical biology department at Rutgers University, which has been studying the therapeutic effects of green tea for a dozen years.
Green tea has been shown to be effective against lung, prostate, liver and esophagal cancer, among others.
"So, the biology actually is there and that's very exciting," Yang said. "But the disappointing part is we really don't know how it works."
Yang said anyone who drinks hot beverages, green tea included, should avoid drinking them too hot because of the association with oral and esophagal cancers.
Earlier in the day, other researchers presented the benefits of ginger extract and a traditional Chines herb, both of which may stop the growth of cancer cells.
Mice fed 500 micrograms of gingerol (the source of ginger's spiciness) three times a week for two weeks developed fewer tumors after being injected with human colorectal carcinoma cells. Mice fed ginger also survived longer, implying that the tumors grew slower, said Ann Bode, at the Hormel Institute at the University of Minnesota.
Ginger has long been used in the treatment and prevention of various illnesses, including cancer. The ginger family has been used for thousands of years.
"The mice were a good (model) for human tumor development because they had no immune system," Bode said, adding that they were more susceptible for developing cancer once they were implanted with human colon cancer cells.
But fed gingerol, the mice developed a "marked suppression" of cancer cells, leading researchers to conclude t he extract fueled apoptosis, or cell death, or possibly through a cellular transcription process.
"It's likely that it's inducing cell death," she said.
Ginger has been used since antiquity for preventing digestive problems, nausea, sea sickness and motion sickness. It also has shown to work against skin, ovarian, colon and breast cancer tumors. But it has been scientifically tested for halting the progression of colon cancer, until now.
Meanwhile, researchers found that the Chinese herb "Scutellaria Barbata," was found to slow the progression of prostate tumors, also in mice. The herb is related to mint of the Labiate family.
The work was done at Union College in Nebraska by Brian Wong, lead author of the study, and other researchers. Wong said he hopes to apply the findings to humans.
Wong said, as a child, his mother forced him to drink the bitter dark tea whenevere he got sick as a child.
The herb has long been part of Chinese medicine, used by doctors to treat everything from hepatitis t o appendicitis to sknake bites and lung and rectal cancer.
He and other researchers explored whether the herb could stop cell growth in prostate cancer, the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in men. They experimented with mice, feeding them "SB," as it is known and discovered that 50 to 70 percent of those given moderate to high doses were cancer free at the end.
Wong said translated to humans, they would need to drink a few ounces but not daily because it contains cytotoxins that can be damaging. "Too much is not good," he said.
Wong said he drinks SB, which is available at retailers, frequently and is running an unofficial experiment as to whether it stops acne, menstrual cramps, balding and psychological disorders. That work, however, is not considered scientific.
Researchers believe "SB" contains phytochemicals that modulte program cell death of mouse prostate cancer cells and delay tumor development.
On Wednesday, researchers are expected to present findings on skin cancer. Arizona has among the highest rates of skin cancer in the country.
Kerry Fehr-Snyder The Arizona Republic
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