Benefits of Drinking Green Tea

July 27, 2006 -- When it comes to fighting cancer, especially breast cancer, USC Preventive Medicine experts say go for green tea instead of black.

Dr. Anna Wu examined the dietary habits of Asian American women. She found those who drank green tea exclusively showed the most benefit.

"They had about a 40 percent reduction in risk of breast cancer and these were women who were daily tea drinkers," Wu said.

Both green and black tea are made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant, but black tea is fermented much longer than green tea, a process that destroys certain polyphenols. USC researchers say these specific tea compounds lower the estrogen levels in women's blood, while black tea elevates it. This is key because estrogen has been found to promote the growth of some breast cancers.

"In fact women who drank only black tea showed no reduction in risk," Wu said.

With this in mind, Dr. Wu wants to gather even more evidence about green tea's effect on a woman's estrogen level.

She's enrolling non tea drinkers in a new study to find out how much tea a woman needs to drink to gain a protective effect.

"The lower dose is probably about four to five cups. The higher dose is probably about eight or nine cups which is not unlike what the Japanese women were drinking," Wu said.

Dr. Wu's latest green tea study is still ongoing, but in the meantime she says she would definitely recommend women start drinking more green tea.

For more information on Dr. Wu's latest study or to volunteer to be part of the study, just click here.

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