Green Tea: Nature's Anti-Cancer Drug?

Joanna-

When you say something as bold as "inhibit cancer," it seems to imply that the researchers have demonstrated that green tea extracts reduced cancer cell growth in an organismal model. Instead, it sounds like that experiment was done in a flask - no doubt telling, but still a far cry from proving that green tea will affect cancer progression in a living model, much less a human being. Dealing with the complex physiological interactions of an organism is a completely different story than dealing with a layer of cells in a flask- the distinction is important. You cannot make the claim that the researchers "used green tea to cure mice who had been infected with cancer and found that the green tea shut down the AhR receptor," because it is simply not true. Nonetheless, the study does seem to indicate the general effect that substances in green tea may have on cancerous cells, and this seems like a viable and interesting area of research that should be pursued, if it hasn't already.

Green tea is perhaps best known for its high levels of anti-oxidants. Drinking green tea lowers total cholesterol levels, reduces the risk of cancer, and alleviates rheumatoid arthritis and many other illnesses. Green tea has many other health benefits. (Link removed by moderator.)

Actually it's not a misleading statement because they were saying that the AhR receptor is something that is responsible for making the cells turn cancerous, so by inhibiting that, you inhibit cancer.

There was a professor Thomas Gasiewicz who was a researcher for the study paper, said that there was a different way that green tea worked to exert it's 'anti-cancer' properties, so even he thought green tea was anti-cancerous. I'm sure there must be contact details on the research paper, you could contact him yourself and ask him!

Writing an article does not mean copying a study, word for word, as that would be breach of copyright and not my own work. I take what the study is saying, and write it into layman's terms.

Thank you for pointing out about the university. As I live in the UK I assumed it was here as I used to live in Rochester, but I will endevour to change that.

Just because you are a 'bio major' and others may not be, doesn't mean they have no brains. I think a lot of scientists, in training or otherwise, feel threatened when members of the general public start reading these studies for themselves and making a choice about their own health care, particularly when it comes to alternative health.

In future, if you have any constructive comments to make, please put your name. I find it annoying when someone has a criticism but will not put a name to their voice. I'd like to know who I am talking to.

A couple comments:

1) The University of Rochester is in Rochester, New York, USA.

2) The article in Chemical Research in Toxicology that you haved cited DOES NOT say that the researchers:

"used green tea to cure mice who had been infected with cancer and found that the green tea shut down the AhR receptor".

If you actually read this article, it says that they took cancer cells from mouse liver tumors (mouse hepatoma cells), exposed them to green tea extracts, and found that the AhR was inhibited. They did NOT cure cancer in these mice. Please do not make misleading statements like the one I quoted above.

3) The article from Chemical Research in Toxicology is from 2003, if you have used more recent research in the rest of your writing, please cite it!

Here's the link to Chemical Research in Toxicology:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/tx025672c

i mean not that being a bio major helps my case but this is absolute insanity and does nothing to help anybody. AhR....so you think throwing out a scientific term for one neurotrasmitter makes this in the least bit legitimate. AhR does NOT control what your cells do, there are MANY things that INFLUENCE the activity and monitor the activity of cells and articles like this do nothing to help anybody