Green tea may slow prostate cancer

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Men with prostate cancer might want to include green tea with their meals. A small study shows that the beverage reduces the levels of some compounds linked to prostate cancer progression.

Researchers from Louisiana State University gave 26 men with prostate cancer a concentrated extract of tea polyphenols for an average of 34 days and found a significant reduction in the levels of several growth factors that promote cancer as well as reductions in prostate specific antigen, a marker of cancer growth.

The men, who were all scheduled for prostate cancer surgery, took four capsules a day (a total of about 800 milligrams) of the green tea extract EGCG. That’s equal to about 12 cups of green tea per day. The extract also contained other types of polyphenols.

Some men had reductions in growth factors of up to 30%. However, the response varied among the men for reasons that researchers don’t yet understand.

‘There is reasonably good evidence that many cancers are preventable, and our studies using plant-derived substances support the idea that plant compounds found in a healthy diet can play a role in preventing cancer development and progression,’ the lead author of the study, James Cardelli, said in a news release.

The study is published online in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.

-- Shari Roan