Reported
by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist .The polyphenols in green tea could help to prevent the spread of
prostate cancer, according to new experiments.
Green tea has already been
linked to various health benefits, such as cancer prevention. Now a team at the
University of Wisconsin says that the polyphenols in green tea - a group of
active constituents - appear to be important in blocking a molecular pathway
that is important in cancer.
They looked at a mouse model of human prostate cancer and found
that green tea polyphenols can control insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) - a
molecule known to be important in cancer. It seems as if IGF-1 is important in
the development of the blood supply to the tumor - so any compound which can
block this would be, potentially, a useful anti-cancer drug.
