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Sat, Dec-24-05, 06:54
Green tea studied in leukemia fight
By AMY NORTON
Thursday, December 22, 2005 Page A19
Reuters News Agency
NEW YORK -- Green tea may help treat a form of adulthood leukemia, if the cases of four patients are any indication, according to a new report.
Doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., found that of four patients who started drinking green tea or taking green tea extracts, three showed clear improvements in their condition in the following months.
The patients all had chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL, a form of leukemia that usually arises during or after middle-age and typically progresses slowly. Like all types of leukemia, CLL is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow, in which abnormal white blood cells replace healthy blood cells.
What's particularly interesting about these four cases, according to Tait Shanafelt, is that the patients all started using green tea on their own last year, after hearing media reports about a lab study led by Dr. Shanafelt.
That study showed that one compound found in green tea, known as EGCG, was able to kill cancer cells that were taken from CLL patients.
After the findings were published, the doctors became aware of four CLL patients at their centre who had started using green-tea products and seemed to be doing better. In interviewing the patients and reviewing their records, the doctors found that three showed signs of a regression in their cancer after they started to drink green tea or take green tea capsules. The fourth had an improvement in her white-blood-cell count, though her disease remained unchanged by standard criteria.
These cases alone cannot prove that green tea or its extracts conferred the benefits, Dr. Shanafelt said. An answer to that question, he said, awaits the outcome of an ongoing clinical trial he is leading. The study, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, is testing the effects of a purified EGCG extract in treating CLL.
A number of previous studies have suggested that green tea and extracts of the beverage have cancer-fighting abilities, possibly due to the tea's concentration of certain antioxidants -- compounds that help ward off cell damage that can lead to cancer, heart disease and other ills.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051222/HTEA22/TPHealth/
By AMY NORTON
Thursday, December 22, 2005 Page A19
Reuters News Agency
NEW YORK -- Green tea may help treat a form of adulthood leukemia, if the cases of four patients are any indication, according to a new report.
Doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., found that of four patients who started drinking green tea or taking green tea extracts, three showed clear improvements in their condition in the following months.
The patients all had chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL, a form of leukemia that usually arises during or after middle-age and typically progresses slowly. Like all types of leukemia, CLL is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow, in which abnormal white blood cells replace healthy blood cells.
What's particularly interesting about these four cases, according to Tait Shanafelt, is that the patients all started using green tea on their own last year, after hearing media reports about a lab study led by Dr. Shanafelt.
That study showed that one compound found in green tea, known as EGCG, was able to kill cancer cells that were taken from CLL patients.
After the findings were published, the doctors became aware of four CLL patients at their centre who had started using green-tea products and seemed to be doing better. In interviewing the patients and reviewing their records, the doctors found that three showed signs of a regression in their cancer after they started to drink green tea or take green tea capsules. The fourth had an improvement in her white-blood-cell count, though her disease remained unchanged by standard criteria.
These cases alone cannot prove that green tea or its extracts conferred the benefits, Dr. Shanafelt said. An answer to that question, he said, awaits the outcome of an ongoing clinical trial he is leading. The study, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, is testing the effects of a purified EGCG extract in treating CLL.
A number of previous studies have suggested that green tea and extracts of the beverage have cancer-fighting abilities, possibly due to the tea's concentration of certain antioxidants -- compounds that help ward off cell damage that can lead to cancer, heart disease and other ills.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20051222/HTEA22/TPHealth/