Green tea appears to protect against cancer by affecting a “promiscuous” protein that pharmaceutical experts are already targeting in an effort to develop a new drug to stop the disease, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center have found. The research, which buttresses beliefs about the health benefits of green tea with solid scientific evidence, has been cited as part of the best doctoral thesis produced by a student at the university’s School of Medicine and Dentistry this year. The thesis by student Christine Palermo is part of a wider research project led by toxicologist Thomas A. Gasiewicz, Ph.D., whose decades-long studies of the harmful effects of dioxin ultimately led his group to explore the protective effects of green tea. While it’s been reported that green tea protects people against some forms of cancer, such as breast and liver cancer, exactly how it does so has been difficult to pinpoint. The latest results make more feasible the idea of harnessing green tea’s protective power. Just as people with aches and pains no longer have to chew on willow bark to receive the benefits of the substance salicin – they simply take an aspirin –the current research opens the door to extending the health benefits first discovered in green tea to people who never touch the beverage. Isolating the chemicals that protect against cancer would also sidestep questions such as how to take into account different types of teas and different brewing processes, or how much tea one needs to drink.
