A small study at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center found that using green tea extract containing EGCG prior to prostate cancer surgery reduced three prostate cancer proteins.
26 men took green tea extract capsules (Polyphenon E) equivalent to drinking 12 cups of green tea daily for a month prior to prostate removal surgery.
They were tested for three proteins that are associated with prostate cancer spread and growth: hepatocyte growth factor or HGF, vascular endothelial growth factor or VEGF, and prostate specific antigen or PSA.
After the month of green tea, all three proteins were reduced, with some patients showing significant reductions of more than 30%.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among American men with an estimated 192,280 men diagnosed and 27,360 deaths for 2009.
Researchers suggest that this study shows that green tea may help with low-risk prostate cancer tumors under active surveillance (Cancer Prevention Research, June 2009).
The EPA has just declared the first public health emergency as part of the Superfund clean-up program established in 1980.
This declaration will provide $6 million to residents of Libby, Montana and nearby Troy. Residents in these two towns have beeen contaminated with asbestos from vermiculite mined at W. R. Grace & Company (originally owned by Zonolite) mines which were closed in 1990.
At one time, the mineral vermiculite from this mine provided 80% of the vermiculite used for blown insulation for attics and between construction studs in tens of millions of homes (estimated).
In the two towns of 3900 people, there are currently 500 people with asbestos-related diseases including asbestos lung mesothelioma and asbestosis. There are an additional 50 new cases diagnosed annually. Workers in the mines were all exposed to asbestos. They also carried asbestos dust home and exposed their families through airborne transmission.
Mesothelioma and other asbestos conditions may take years to develop but, to date, are largely fatal.
The new fund will be used for co-pay and uninsured patient medical expenses.
With a flu pandemic (WHO raised the H1N1 swine flu alert), everyone should protect themselves by avoiding sick people (or wear a mask), using disposable tissue to cover their nose or mouth during a cough or sneeze, staying home if symptomatic, not touching eyes, nose, or mouth, and washing hands frequently.
What's the best way to wash your hands?
It turns out that plain old-fashioned soap and water work best.
Microbiologists at the University of North Carolina tested 14 different ways to clean hands from antiseptic tissues and alcohol rubs to plain soap and water.
Participants cleaned their hands, were exposed to a bacteria and virus similar in structure to disease-causing organisms, then cleaned their hands for 10 seconds.
Hand wipes, including the alcohol-based ones, removed about 50% of the bacteria.
But soap and water cleaning removed 90% of the bacteria (December 2005).
Plain soap and water had almost twice the power to remove bacteria from hands as antiseptic wipes.
The reasons are that plain old-fashioned soap is a surfactant which lifts bacteria (and dirt) off the skin. Rinsing with plain water then washes away the bacteria enveloped in the soap suds.
The World Health Organization officially declared the current spread of H1N1 influenza virus A to be a global pandemic. This is the first declared flu pandemic since the Hong Kong flu of 1968.
The declaration was made, not because of the strength of this virus to kill people rapidly (so far less than 150 have died worldwide), but because of the very rapid worldwide transmission. It took less than three months to spread to 74 countries, and is still infecting people.
This WHO pandemic declaration will help fund and coordinate worldwide efforts to contain, treat, and prevent the flu.
What are the symptoms of H1N1 swine flu? This influenza A shows a wide range of symptoms including fever, cough, aches and pain, headache, sore throat, chills, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and fatigue.
The CDC has provided information for the public here.
A recent study exposed rats to cigarette smoke or plain air for 56 days. Half the animals had Chinese green tea high in EGCG added to their diets.
The animals exposed to cigarette smoke without dietary green tea showed enlargement of airspace in their lungs, goblet cell hyperplasia, and significantly elevated levels of SOD, catalase activity, and serum 8-isoprostane.
Animals receiving green tea showed no significant damage from the cigarette smoke (Chan KH, Chinese green tea ameliorates lung injury in cigarette smoke-exposed rats, Respiratory Medicine, May 2009).
This is a preliminary study but it demonstrates the potential for green tea antioxidants to protect lung tissue from early oxidative stress from exposure to cigarette smoke.
Health News: May 2009
EGCG Kills Antibiotic-resistant A. baumannii
Antibiotic resistance to drugs is increasing worldwide. Acinetobacter baumanni is no exception. A. baumannii can cause pneumonia and is a growing problem for hospital intensive care units.
A preliminary study has found that EGCG from green tea killed 21 different isolates of multidrug-resistant A. baumannii.
In addition, synergy was noted for EGCG and topical mafenide acetate (Sulfamylon) for one isolate (Osterburg A, Highly antibiotic-resistant Acinetobacter baumanni clinical isolates are killed by the green tea polyphenol (-)-eipgallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), Clinical Microbiol Infect., April 2009).
A. baumannii may become invasive after surgeries, increasing length of stay in hospitals as well as health risks.
A very preliminary study has found that EGCG from green tea may help supplement anti-retroviral medications to help reduce HIV transmission.
There are peptide fragments secreted from prostatic acidic phosphatase that form amyloid fibrils. These fibrils then enhance HIV transmission by capturing HIV virus particles (virions) and directing them to human cells, increasing the potential for infection.
EGCG from green tea can inhibit this activity of the fibrils and does so without toxicity to human cells (Hauber I, The main green tea polyphenol epigallocatechin-3-gallate counteracts semen-mediated enhancement of HIV infection, Proceedings National Academy Sciences USA, May 2009).
Other studies have shown that green tea has many levels of activity against HIV infection.
Health News: May 2009
Young, Smart, And Drunk
Social marketing studies identify a group of young people who are tech-savvy, fashionable, well educated, and ethnically mixed.
They are called Cyber Millenials.
Unfortunately they are also one of the highest risk groups for drinking alcohol to excess.
They are also paradoxically more health conscious than other groups. They smoke less, exercise more, and eat healthy.
Yet despite their education, money, and health practices, they drink alcohol in dangerous amounts and binge drink.
Researchers hope that by using social marketing analysis, they can discover subgroups with specific health problems like the Cyber Millenials (Moss, Characterizing and reaching high-risk drinkers using audience segmentation, Alcoholism Clinical and Experimental Research, May 2009).
We all know where alcoholism leads.
One can only wonder what the lives of this group of young people with so many advantages would be like if they substituted a habit of drinking green tea appropriately rather than excessive alcohol.
Health News: May 2009
It Was The Calorie
People have argued about the cause of massively increasing obesity throughout the world for several decades. Most reputable scientists have affirmed that stored fat is due to excess energy intake based on "calories in, calories out."
Now a new study has explored calorie burning in free-living American adults and children.
The scientists calculated the number of calories it would take to maintain a healthy weight and then recorded how much people were actually eating.
With this information and recorded food intake from the 1970's and 2000's, they predicted the future weight of the subjects.
For children, the predicted weight and actual weight matched exactly. This means that the calorie alone may explain childhood obesity.
For adults, the predicted weight accounted for approximately 80% of the actual weight. The authors suggest that calories may explain all the weight increase, but some adults may be exercising more to account for the 20% reduction (Swinburn BA, Estimating the changes in energy flux that characterize the rise in obesity prevalence, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, April 2009).
Extended and intense training for long distance endurance exercise like marathons and triathlons may suppress the immune system.
Athletes have shown decreased immune response, and increased inflammatory reactions during training and performance.
Researchers have now been able to modify that immune suppression.
They gave theanine (from green tea) and cystine (an amino acid) to long-distance runners for 10 days prior to the start of training.
The placebo group of runners showed a decrease in lymphocyte production by the immune system and a significant increase in inflammation markers like hs-CRP or high sensitivity C-reactive protein.
The group receiving theanine and cystine showed no decrease in immune system function or increase in inflammation (Murakami S, Effects of oral supplementation with cystine and theanine on the immune function of athletes in endurance exercise: randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry, April 2009).
This is a preliminary study which does not tell us if theanine alone could provide the same protection.
The current swine flu epidemic shows the world's vulnerability to viral transmission.
Swine flu is a type A virus that includes H1N1, H1N2, H3N2, and H3N1 according to the CDC. Infection spreads among people through airborne viral particles ejected by sneezes and coughs. These viral particles are also contagious when people touch contaminated surfaces and then touch their eyes, nose, and mouth.
Preventing the flu is always a great defense and includes avoiding sick people (or protecting yourself if you provide health care); rapid treatment if you have symptoms of fever, aches, sore throat, coughing, vomiting, or diarrhea; and washing your hands with soap and water frequently.
Many studies in green tea research have found that catechins in green tea significantly reduce viral infections including influenza type A/H1N1 (reportedly the current swine flu type). You can read more about green tea and influenza viruses here
Health News: April 2009
Belly Fat And Cardio
Belly fat or excess stomach fat, is associated with metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and potential increased risk of diabetes or cardiovascular health problems.
Researchers at the University of Illinois have found that regular cardio exercise sessions will help remove more belly fat than flexibility exercises.
Older sedentary adults participated in a fitness program of three sessions of cardio exercise per week or three sessions of flexibility exercises during a 10 month study.
After 10 months, the cardio group had less belly fat.
They also had reduced C-reactive protein, an inflammatory marker, and improved fitness overall (Viera and Woods, multiple studies, 2009).
Is it easy to choose healthy food like a salad when dining out?
A new series of studies offered lunch menu selections to people. When a healthy salad was added to the menu, people actually increased their selections of unhealthy food.
The researchers explain that this is a phenomenon called "vicarious goal fulfillment."
Just thinking about the choice of a salad was sufficient for most people and let them feel like they had kept their goals of healthy eating, despite the fact that they actually ordered unhealthy food (Wilcox, Vicarious goal fulfillment: when the mere presence of a healthy option leads to an ironically indulgent decision, Journal of Consumer Research, April 20009).
Who was hit hardest by this phenomenon? People with high levels of self-control.
Werner Hunstein, professor emeritus of hematology at the University of Heidelberg, was diagnosed in 2001 with amyloidosis.
This rare disease is associated with buildup of abnormal amyloid proteins in various organs of the body. It is potentially fatal.
Alzheimer's disease is one form of amyloidosis.
Based on the recommendations of colleagues, Hunstein began drinking green Darjeeling tea every day.
For 20 months, he found that the daily green tea provided results as successful as chemotherapy. The buildup of toxic amyloid proteins stopped (letter, Blood, September, 2007).
While his experience may be unique, multiple studies have shown benefits from green tea with amyloid diseases like Alzheimer's.
Health News: April 2009
Whose Body Is It?
You've probably heard about Vitamin D in the news lately. This is a vitamin that the body can make from light exposure to sunlight on the skin or from eating fatty fish. It prevents many diseases, especially the bony deformity of rickets.
Vitamin D may also help people with autoimmune disease. However, a new study suggests that it may also make some of those autoimmune diseases worse over the long-term.
How does that happen?
It turns out that an estimated 90% of the cells you carry around in your body are not really you.
They are bacteria and other unidentified species of critters.
(no, that does not explain the voices...)
Taking extra Vitamin D may deactivate the Vitamin D nuclear receptor, reducing the body's inflammatory response to bacterial attack, and thus letting more bacteria live and reproduce (Albert, Marshall, Vitamin D: The alternative hypothesis, Autoimmunity Reviews, April 2009).
But we still need Vitamin D for ourselves. Following recommended amounts should be helpful.
Oh, life does get complicated.
One thing is fairly simple. Healthy people have been drinking green tea daily for up to 5000 years.
Food safety in the United States has not improved over the last four years according to aa recent report by the CDC for 2008.
Food-borne illness include salmonella, E. coli, listeria, campylobacter, cryptosporidium, and many others.
The most recent outbreak of salmonella was traced to peanut butter from one company that sickened nearly 700 people with 9 reported deaths.
While children under age 4 have the highest frequency of infection from food-borne organisms, people over age 50 have the highest rate of hospitalizations and fatalities from these illnesses.
This lack of progress over the last four years may be due to failure to achieve goals set by the Healthy People 2010 government program, possibly due to reduced funding or reduced inspections.
Neuroblastoma is the number one cancer in infants and the third most common cancer in children under age 10 (ACS). This malignant cancer occurs in the developing nervous system in children.
A new study has combined the flavonoid antioxidant EGCG from green tea with retinoids (phytonutrient chemicals related to Vitamin A) and tested them together in human cancer neuroblastoma cell lines. They also tested the flavonoid genistein GST from soy.
After 7 days exposure to retinoids, the cancer cells showed increased differentiation. Then with 24 hours exposure to the flavonoid, there was increased cancer cell death or apoptosis.
EGCG increased cancer cell death with activated caspase-8, using a receptor-mediated pathway to kill the cancer cells.
The researchers conclude that the retinoids and flavonoids combined to work synergistically to control malignancy in the neuroblastoma cancer cells (Das A, Retinoids induce differentiation and downregulate telomerase activity and N-Myc to increase sensitivity to flavonoids for apoptosis in human malignant neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells, International Journal Oncology, March 2009).
This is a preliminary study and has not been tested with humans yet.
If you're looking for long-term weight loss, you may want to limit the use of sugar in your tea and other beverages.
A new study has found that reducing beverages sweetened with sugar was significantly associated with weight loss at 6 months and 18 months.
In a survey of 810 adults participating in an 18-month behavior modification trial (PREMIER), researchers found that reductions in sugar-sweetened beverages were more effective for weight loss than reductions in calories from solid food (Chen L, Reduction in consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with weight loss: the PREMIER trial, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, April 2009).
Sugar-sweetened beverages included soft drinks, sweetened fruit drinks, fruit punches, high calorie beverages with sugar, and even zero calorie tea or coffee with sugar added.
Worried about the taste of tea without added sugar?
Drinking beverages while their temperature is still very hot is strongly associated with an increased risk of esophageal cancer.
Some studies have shown that green tea may reduce the risk of esophageal cancer but that benefit may not apply with very hot beverage temperatures.
A new study has confirmed that drinking extremely hot green tea increases the risk of esophageal cancer.
Comparing 1520 cases of esophageal cancer and 3879 controls in China, there was a significantly increased risk of cancer as the beverage temperature increased.
There was no increased risk with tea consumed at normal comfortable temperatures (Wu M, Green tea drinking, high tea temperature and esophageal cancer in high- and low-risk areas of Jiangsu Province, China: a population-based case-control study, International Journal of Cancer, April 2009).
In areas where people have the cultural habit of drinking extremely hot, even boiling, beverages on a regular basis, the sensitive tissue of the esophagus becomes scalded which then can increase the risk of cancer development.
Always drink your tea at a comfortable temperature.
Health News: March 2009
EGCG And Cholangiocarcinoma Chemotherapy
Cholangiocarcinoma is a cancer of the cells of the bile ducts. Bile ducts allow bile, used for digestion, to drain from the liver into the small intestine. 95% of cholangiocarcinomas are classified as adenocarcinomas.
This is a rare cancer but is increasing in frequency. Currently an estimated 4600 new cases are expected in the United States as of 2008.
It is also known to respond poorly to chemotherapy at this time.
A new study examined the use of green tea catechin antioxidants with three human cholangiocarcinoma cancer cell lines, using both cellular and animal studies.
Only EGCG, epigallocatechin-gallate from green tea, increased the response of the cholangiocarcinoma cancer cells to three chemotherapeutic agents.
EGCG was effective in increasing cancer cell death or apoptosis, mitochondrial membrane depolarization, and cytosolic cytochrome C expression. It was also effective in decreasing the growth of cancer cells, and increasing the response to chemotherapy in an animal model (Lang M, Epigallocatechin-gallate modulates chemotherapy-induced apoptosis in human cholangiocarcinoma cells, Liver International, February 2009).
A new animal study has found that living together dramatically increases survival after strokes.
Male mice that lived with a female mouse survived a full week after a stroke, while only 40% of isolated males survived for a week.
In addition, more brain tissue was protected in males with female partners. Isolated males suffered four times more brain damage after a stroke than partnered mice.
There were also lower inflammatory responses in the males with partners.
One interesting result was higher levels of IL-6 or interleukin-6 in the brains of the partnered males. This cytokine serves as an anti-inflammatory in the brain, while paradoxically serving as a pro-inflammatory in the body periphery (Karelina K, Procedings National Academy of Sciences, March 2009).
The partnered male mice lived with females for two weeks before the stroke and continued living together afterwards.
In our time, superbugs have developed resistance to modern antibiotics. One of the three most dangerous superbugs found in hospitals is Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
P. aeruginosa is particularly dangerous for burn and wound patients, contact lens infections, and cystic fibrosis patients.
Once it forms colonies, it creates biofilms that are 1000 times more resistant to antibiotics, creating chronic infections almost impossible to treat.
Then, with those biofilms, one of the ways P. aeruginosa finally kills people is by making a poison similar to rattlesnake venom to destroy our cells (Welch M, Society for General Microbiology, Trinity College, Dublin, September 2008).
Other scientists have found that P. aeruginosa use protein F-actin and our own DNA from our neutrofils as building blocks to construct these biofilms.
By targeting these building blocks, they were able to disrupt the development of the bacterial biofilms (Parks Q, Journal of Medical Microbiology, March 2009).
This research may open the door for new approaches to treating superbugs.
Diabetes type 2, or adult-onset diabetes, is a deadly disease expected to reach epidemic proportions worldwide in the next few decades.
A new study has found that long-term consumption of green or black tea is associated with lower fasting blood glucose levels and a lower incidence of type 2 diabetes in a group of 300 elderly Mediterranean people.
Participants reported drinking tea for at least 30 years of their lives.
Results showed that drinking tea was associated with dose-dependent benefits regardless of age, smoking, body mass index or weight, physical activity levels, sex, or dietary habits. The higher levels of tea consumption provided greater risk reduction.
Even moderate tea consumption of 1-2 cups daily was associated with a 70% reduction in risk of diabetes 2 (Panagiotakos DB, Long-term tea intake is associated with reduced prevalence of (type 2) diabetes mellitus among elderly people from Mediterranean islands: MEDIS epidemiological study, Yonsei Medical Journal, February 2009).
A new study has found that daily intake of mushrooms and green tea reduced the risk of breast cancer by up to 89%.
In a case-controlled study of 1009 women from southeast China, age 20 to 87, Australian researchers found that women who ate fresh mushrooms daily had 64% reduced risk of breast cancer and those who ate dried mushrooms daily had 47% reduced risk of breast cancer.
This result was also significantly dose-dependent, meaning that a higher intake of mushrooms was associated with the least breast cancer.
When daily green tea was included in the analysis, the risk for breast cancer was reduced by 89% with daily green tea and daily fresh mushrooms.
This result was also very significant in a dose-dependent manner (Zhang M, Dietary intakes of mushrooms and green tea combine to reduce the risk of breast cancer in Chinese women, International Journal of Cancer, March 2009).
Another study has confirmed the antiviral effects of EGCG from green tea against the flu.
Using both cell lines and animal studies, researchers in China tested EGCG with Influenza A H1 N1. They found that both protection from pathological damage and the survival rate was improved strongly with EGCG. The response was dose dependent, with increased EGCG providing greater protection (Xiao X, Antiviral effect of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) on influenza A virus, Zhongguo Zhong Yao Za Zhi, November 2008).
This is a preliminary study, but results are consistent with other human studies of green tea and influenza.
Health News: February 2009
Theanine Improves Flu Vaccine
Research has already shown that green tea may help prevent the flu.
Now, research has found that theanine, a rare protein found in green tea, and cystine (a more common protein) may increase the immune response of some elderly patients after flu vaccination.
Patients in a nursing home received either theanine combined with cystine or placebo orally for 14 days before flu vaccination.
Results showed that the elderly patients with low hemoglobin or low serum total protein showed a significantly better immune response to influenza type A (H1N1). There were no differences detected in other patients or with other flu strains in this test, but the sample size was small.
The elderly are at high risk for influenza infections and also have weaker responses to flu vaccines.