Green Tea and Cancer

A recent statement by the FDA claimed that green tea does not offer preventive effects against breast and prostate cancer -- and by extension, any other form of cancer. The studies they cited are weak at best and did not use green tea extract. Simply drinking green tea does not appear to offer any significant protection against cancer.

However -- and there is always a however -- another study has identified the specific mechanism by which green tea DOES fight cancer. A study reported in U.S. News and World Report details the findings of Thomas Gasiewicz, researcher in the Department of Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Gasiewicz found that "the prime antioxidant component of green tea, which is in the family of plant chemicals called catechins—or epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) to be precise—zooms in on a key target in the cancer cell. And the target is a big one: a normal stress protein, known as heat shock protein 90 (HSP90). Heat shock or stress proteins are critical to survival of all cells, cancerous or otherwise.

"Stress proteins abound in both plants and animals. Think of them as protectors that chaperone the thousands of worker-bee proteins that interact in and on the surface of our cells in the course of any one cell's life. Growth, performance, communication, you name it, and some form of HSP is a key player. When cells are threatened by a treacherous environment such as heat (from which we get the name HSP), proteins curl up and then clump up. We now know it also happens with damaging cold, low oxygen, or poisons. Heat shock protein protectors quickly rev up and come to the rescue to both repair injured proteins and to carry the irreversibly damaged ones to a disposal dump for an out-of-the-way burial so new ones can take their place.

"Cancer hijacks the stress protein network in its efforts to overtake the body. Cancer cells are fast growing and on the march wherever they set up shop—breast, prostate, colon, bone marrow. And in that superstressed state of attack, cancer cells produce abnormally high levels of HSP90 to protect their cancer-producing proteins. Even in the face of toxic radiation and chemotherapy, some cancer cells survive because of these natural potent protectors. What Gasiewicz and his colleagues have shown is that the age-old EGCG does battle with HSP90. A few months ago, his laboratory reported for the first time that EGCG binds to this protective stress protein important to cancer growth and survival and essentially takes it out of commission."

It appears that one would have to drink as many as 10 cups of tea a day to get this effect. But with green tea extract, you can get the protective benefits of EGCG without the insomnia and frequent trips to the bathroom that drinking 10 cups of tea might entail. Studies are now underway to determine if there is a health benefit from taking capsules instead of whole tea.

Once again, your government is out to discredit any possible natural cures for disease. Take anything the FDA says about natural supplements (that isn't supported with a lot of peer-reviewed studies) as a further attempt to make the pharmaceutical companies richer.