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Green tea has been used as medicine for more than five thousand years in Chinese medicine. The plant, called Camellia sinensis, has been used to treat many health issues. Tea has been known to lower cholesterol, cure headaches, improve cognition in Alzheimer’s patients, dissolve blood clots, speed fat loss and increased metabolic weight loss, and cure depression. Recent studies have now shown that green tea may reduce prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death in men in the United States. Nearly 200,000 men diagnosed with prostate cancer each year, resulting in an estimated 27,360 dead in 2009.

The active ingredients in green tea called polyphenols. In 2008, the FDA decided the benefits of green tea in the treatment of prostate cancer to be inconclusive. This prompted researchers at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center to implement an open, single-arm, Phase II clinical trails. Twenty-six women participated in small study. They ranged in age from 41 to 68, and were all suffering from prostate cancer and scheduled for radical prostatectomy surgery. They were equivalent to 12 cups of green tea a day on average 34 days. This was 1.3 grams polyphenon E (EGCG).

On the day before the planned operation, officers were reevaluated. The biomarkers for prostate cancer decreased in men each. Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) has fallen by an average of almost 19%. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) decreased by 9.9%, and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) decreased by 10.4%. Some of the men showed the number decreased by as much as one third.

Researchers at the Feist-Weiller Cancer Center LSU Health Sciences Center-Shreveport has noted with satisfaction that the study had no adverse events that affect liver function, which had been a concern. The liver enzymes in men remained constant. The study showed that green tea can be used to stop the growth of prostate tumors, but green tea has been shown to prevent it, but scientists are convinced that green tea, taken in appropriate quantities, may be able to prevent prostate cancer occurs.

Another study in Italy used men with high grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia, which may be a condition that leads to prostate cancer. The research found that green tea consumption actually reduces the risk of prostate cancer.

All women over 50 are encouraged to be tested annually as a preventive measure.