Green tea could 'short-circuit' cancer

Researchers funded by the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) have presented evidence that a major component in green tea may short-circuit the cancer process in a way that scientists had not foreseen.

Speaking at an international conference on diet and cancer, the AICR experts also released the results of surveys showing that only 15% of Americans say they drink green tea on a typical day, and less than 1% drink enough to match the average per capita consumption in Asian countries, alongside 'intriguing evidence' from studies conducted among Asian populations that suggest a protective effect for green tea. They also pointed to the rapidly increasing number of laboratory studies exploring green tea's effects on a cellular level.

'We have determined that a unique quirk of biochemistry allows green tea's protective effects to extend to many different kinds of cells,' said Dr. Thomas A. Gasiewicz, a Professor of Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester. 'In fact, the active green tea substance - called EGCG - seems to target one protein that is particularly common throughout our bodies, and it does so with a degree of precision that cancer drugs still aren't able to match.'

The protein in question is called HSP90, which is present at higher levels in many cancer cells and some scientists believe can help to trigger the cascade of events that eventually leads to cancer. However, when EGCG binds to this protein it helps prevent these events.

Scientists suspect that many different mechanisms have to be involved to explain the Asian data linking green tea to the prevention of such diverse cancers as those of the breast, prostate, bladder, colon, stomach, pancreas, breast and esophagus; but this finding shows that EGCG could be effective against an important 'common denominator' for many different cancers, at the very start of the process.