An article today in the Daily Mail highlights some research into the actions of an extract from Green Tea on skin cancer tumours.
Interestingly the same benefit would not be seen from drinking green tea because it is too weak in that form.
Green tea has been shown to be useful topically for rosacea sufferers especially after red light therapy and after IPL.
Green tea extract ‘eradicates skin cancer with no side-effects’ – but drinking it doesn’t work
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 15:16 GMT, 22 August 2012
A chemical found in green tea has been used to treat two types of skin cancer, scientists say.
The extract is too weak to make an impact when consumed in tea. However, when applied to cancer cells in the lab it made two-thirds of tumours shrink or disappear.
Scientists at the universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, who carried out the research, found the extract, known as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCg), had no side-effects on other cells or tissue.
They created a cell with EGCg and transferrin, a protein that naturally targets and latches on to the surface of cancer cells, and applied it to tumours.
Tests were done on two types of skin cancer: epidermoid carcinoma which forms scales on the surface of the skin and melanoma which often develops in people who have moles on their skin.
…
Anti-cancer properties of EGCg were established in earlier laboratory tests elsewhere. Scientists at other universities around the world have experimented with it to treat prostate cancer and leukaemia
The journal article cited in the article is here Antitumor activity of the tea polyphenol epigallocatechin-3-gallate encapsulated in targeted vesicles after intravenous administration, Nanomedicine (Lond). 2012 Aug 14.
