Drinking Green Tea Good for Breast Cancer Survivors

A new study published in the Aug 27, 2010 issue of Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics suggests that drinking decaffeinated green tea helps breast cancer survivors improve metabolic biomarkers.

The study led by Stendell-Hollis  N.R. and colleagues from the University of Arizona showed that breast cancer survivors who drank decaffeinated green tea reduced their energy intake leading to some weight loss, and improved their high-density lipoprotein (or good cholesterol) levels.

Stendell-Hollis et al said in their study report that being overweight after breast cancer treatment may increase a woman's risk for recurrent disease and early onset cardiovascular disease.  

The authors also said green tea has been proposed to help weight loss and improve drinkers' metabolic profiles including glucose, insulin and blood lipids.

For the study, they tested the effect of drinking decaffeinated green tea for a period of 6 months on body weight, composition, selected metabolic parameters and lipid profiles in 54 overweight breast cancer survivors.

The participants had a mean weight of 80.2 kilograms, body mass index of 30.1 kg/m2, and body fat 46.4 percent. They were given either 960 ml of decaffeinated green tea or a placebo tea (herbal tea) daily for six months.

Although drinking green tea increased high density lipoprotein or HDL and reduced intake of energy, it did not significantly improve the HDL/LDL ratio and insulin resistance index.

The researchers concluded "Intake of decaffeinated green tea for 6 months was associated with a slight reduction in body weight and improved HDL and glucose homeostasis in overweight breast cancer survivors."

Drinking green tea has been associated with reduced risk of a range of diseases and the natural beverage can provide more than what the researchers have learned.  

Rutgers University researchers such as Dr. C.S. Yang have early found green tea antioxidants help fight cancer by promoting apoptosis - programmed cell deaths in cancer cells.  (We will publish some reports on this issue sooner).

Readers need to be aware though that bottled green tea purchased from grocery stores contains little to none of green tea antioxidants like EGCG, according to a recent study.  Those who are concerned should prepare their own green tea from scratch with bagged tea or bulk green tea and hot water.

More reports on breast cancer will be published in the National Breast Cancer Awareness to help readers to better understand breast cancer prevention and treatment.  

Media outlets have said simply wearing pink in this month is not enough to help prevent or treat the disease that is diagnosed in more than 175,000 women and kills about 50,000 each year in the United States.

David Liu