Will Green Tea Offer The Prescription For Beating Cancer?
With early detection, cancer is no longer an automatic death sentence. However, an initial diagnosis still brings with it a host of questions: What’s the most effective course of treatment? Are standard approaches best? Or are non-ancient therapies preferable—notably if the cancer does not seem to respond to chemotherapy and radiation.
In recent times, a great deal of emphasis has been placed on unconventional therapies for cancer. For instance, in a commentary within the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Elizabeth Kaegi of the Task Force on Various Therapies of the Canadian Breast Cancer Analysis Initiative mentioned the fact that cancer patients are attempting a range of intriguing therapies, including Essiac, Iscador, hydrazine sulfate, vitamins A,C, and E, and 714-X. But perhaps one in all the most popular therapies that has been tried is green tea. Of course, visit your local convenience store and you’ll realize jug after jug of green tea in different flavors. Still, you will be wondering what makes green tea thus special—and if it very can facilitate to combat cancer.
Green Tea—The Basics
Green tea is produced by steaming or frying the leaves of the shrub referred to as Camellia sinensis. The leaves, which aren’t fermented, are then dried. For 5,000 years, families in China and Japan have hailed green tea as a valuable stimulant and a good remedy for stomach ailments. You’ll even purchase green tea in capsule kind currently, though the particular medicinal benefits from such capsules have nonetheless to be established.
Dried tea leaves are far additional advanced than you may think. Specifically, they are made from phytochemicals, plant alkaloids, proteins, carbohydrates, fiber, phenolic acids, and minerals. After all, the precise composition of the leaves varies, depending on when the leaves are harvested and the way they’re processed. You should conjointly be aware of the fact {that the} composition of green tea varies from that of black tea, since black tea has fewer polyphenols as a result of of the fermentation process.
Side Effects
Green tea will contain anywhere from 10 to 80 milligrams of caffeine—the particular quantity depends on how it has been produced and stored. Since caffeine is a known stimulant, green tea could lead to a racing heart rate and insomnia. Thus, heart patients, pregnant girls, and nursing mothers ought to ideally drink no more than two cups of green tea a day.
Cancer Prevention
Numerous scientific studies have explored the utilization of green tea as a cancer preventative. Per Kaegi, digestive cancers appear to be notably responsive to green tea. Of course, such tea seems to somewhat decrease the risk of experiencing cancer of the digestive tract. Given the actual fact that such conclusions are the result of a variety of epidemiological studies, it seems that the concept that green tea will stop cancer has some merit.
News from the Lab
But what about treating cancer? Will green tea be as effective in treatment as it is in prevention? There was some limited lab work investigating the chance that green tea will be used as another form of cancer treatment. But, at this point, there have only been some animal studies and no human studies. The results of those studies are, at this time, inconclusive.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that one study showed that, if extracts of green tea are applied to mouse skin, it seems to prevent the development of skin cancer when known carcinogens are applied to the skin. Different analysis indicates that green tea will stop the growth of tumors or decrease the amount of tumors in animals that have been exposed to cancer-inflicting agents.
In some animals, green tea and tea extracts prevented cancer cells from metastasizing. There are also indications that green tea extracts will stop chromosomal abnormalities that can cause cancer, furthermore scale back the scale of breast and prostate tumors.
The Magic of EGCG
Green tea contains an antioxidant referred to as epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG. This substance appears to inhibit enzymes that are accountable for cell replication, stop the adhesion of cells, and disrupt the communication pathways which enable cell division to occur. But, EGCG appears to be most critically vital as an antioxidant.
Final Conclusions
Researchers believe that there is proof to suggest that green tea will be used to treat cancer. However, scientists add that additional analysis is totally essential so as to see the complete range of treatment that green tea may provide. For example, researchers must confirm which cancers are most likely to be abated through the use of green tea or green tea extracts. Since there’s additionally evidence to point that green tea will stop cancer further, drinking green tea isn’t solely safe—it’s conjointly highly suggested by some medical experts. Thus, green tea may not just be a thirst-quencher—it could additionally be a key ingredient of a healthy diet.