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Tea and Cancer
The part of tea that makes it so great for a variety of health issues is
thought to be the flavonoids, because these are believed to fight damage from
free radicals. Free radicals are what cause aging, wrinkles, chronic illness,
disease and cancer.
Tea seems to inhibit uncontrolled cell growth - or cell proliferation - which
is normally seen when a person has cancer. Tea also seems to actually cause
those extra cells to die as well, and this process is known as apoptosis.
A lot of research has been done with tea's effect on cancer and so far the
results are considered preliminary. Scientists are excited about doing more in
depth research, though, so many more active studies have been put into motion.
Some of the current indications look extremely promising for effectively
fighting cancer. One study, for instance, found that smokers who drank at
least four cups of green tea each day showed a 31% decrease in certain types
of DNA damage in their white blood cells, which are generally thought to be
indicators of various types of cancer developing. This decrease was compared
to other study participants who drank just four cups of water each day instead
of tea.
Green tea has a compound in it which is called Epigallocatechin gallate, or
EGCG, and this is believed to protect normal cells from carcinogens that
normally cause cancer. Additionally, EGCG has been shown to kill cancer cells
outright. A test was run on hamsters, which showed that EGCG from Green Tea
prevented damage from carcinogens and prevented cancer cells from growing and
multiplying.
Tea has been tested against several different forms of cancer too: Digestive,
Skin, Oral, Lung and Ovarian among others.
Several digestive related cancer studies have been done in fact and these
include a study which showed a 60% reduction in rectal cancer among Russian
women who drank at least 2.5 cups of tea daily. Women who drank just 1.2-2.5
cups of tea a day had risk reductions of 52%. Both groups were compared
against women who drank less than 1.2 cups of tea each day.
Another study showed that people who drank tea daily had a 42% less chance of
getting colon cancer compared to people who didn't drink tea. Another study
showed drinking at least two cups of tea daily reduced postmenopausal women's
chances of digestive and urinary tract cancers by as much as 60%.
There are many different studies and research projects which show amazing
results from the preliminary research of using both Green tea and Black tea to
fight against common cancers. It looks as if the EGCG in Green tea and the
theaflavins in Black tea actually inhibit proteins which are usually
associated with tumors growing in the body. Essentially, these compounds block
the cancerous growth to protect the healthy cells and literally cause the
cancerous cells to simply die.
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