Adding green tea to your diet already has known weight loss and wellbeing benefits to your health, but a new study has found that women who drink tea could be lowering their risk of developing some digestive system cancers.
Researchers from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Centre, led by principle investigator Wei Zheng, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, professor of Medicine, chief of the Division of Epidemiology and director of the Vanderbilt Epidemiology Centre, surveyed women enrolled in the Shanghai Women’s Health Study, to determine green tea’s impact on cancer risk. Participants were asked in an initial interview about how much and which type of tea they consumed, if at all. This was a population-based study of approximately 75,000 middle-aged and older Chinese women, and most of them reported mainly drinking green tea. The women were also asked about other lifestyle and wellness factors such as the kinds of food they ate regularly, and their exercise habits, education level and occupation. Any woman who had ever smoked or who drank alcohol was excluded from the study.
The results were that drinking tea at least 3 times a week over more than 6 months led to a 17% reduced risk of all digestive cancers combined, and increased tea drinking meant a further reduced cancer risk. Participants who drank 2-3 cups of green tea daily were at a 21% reduced risk of digestive system cancers, especially cancers of the stomach/esophagus and colorectum.
Tea is so effective because it contains natural chemicals called polyphenols. These include catechins, such as EGCG and ECG, which are antioxidants and so possibly inhibit cancer by reducing DNA damage and blocking tumour cells from growing and invading.
Sarah Nechuta, Ph.D., MPH, assistant professor of Medicine was the lead author of the study and noted that long-term consumption of green tea provided the best results: ‘For all digestive system cancers combined, the risk was reduced by 27% among women who had been drinking tea regularly for at least 20 years’ and this risk reduction rose to 29% for colorectal cancer amongst the long-term tea drinkers. Nechuta said ‘These results suggest long-term cumulative exposure may be particularly important.’
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