Researchers in the United States say they have confirmed that green tea extracts can effectively curb cancer development without harming healthy cells, through a study of bladder cancer. The team, led by Chinese-American scientists, believes that green tea extracts may be an effective anticancer drug.
The results were published on the same day in the journal Clinical Cancer Research. Rao Jianyu, an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who presided over the study, said their results "improved understanding of the mechanism of the action of green tea extracts". If people understand the mechanism of green tea extracts to curb cancer, it is possible to determine which type of cancer can benefit from green tea extracts.
The development of cancer tumours is closely linked to the spread of cancer cells, the researchers wrote, and the cancer cells must activate a process called actin remodeling. Once this process is activated, cancer cells can invade healthy tissue and cause cancer to spread. and green tea extracts can destroy the "actin remodeling" process, making cancer cells stick together, its movement is hindered, in addition, it can accelerate the aging of cancer cells.
Rao Jianyu said that cancer cells are "aggressive", while green tea extracts break the path of "aggression", restricting cancer cells and making them "localized", making cancer treatment and prognosis work relatively simple.
Earlier, some research has revealed that green tea extracts are effective for many cancers, including bladder cancer, which can cause premature apoptosis of cancer cells and block the blood supply of the tumor tissue. Rao Jianyu told Xinhua that some members of their team were verifying the effect of green tea extracts on other cancers such as stomach cancer.
Unlike previous studies, they use green tea extracts that are very similar to those used in drinking green tea, which means that regular drinking of green tea may have some anti-cancer effect, at least enhancing the body's ability to defend against cancer, he said. However, researchers also believe that at present they have only a limited number of bladder cancer cell lines, to reveal the anticancer mechanism of green tea has yet to be further studied.
Other scientists commented on the same day that the findings further confirmed the potential of green tea in the prevention and treatment of cancer. Especially in the treatment of bladder cancer, new results can help detect bladder cancer susceptibility and reduce morbidity.
