Green Tea Weight Loss News

An antioxidant found in green tea, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), has been shown in studies to possibly slow, or reverse the progress of leukemia.  Green tea has been believed to have multiple health benefits including providing antioxidant protection and weight loss potential among other things.  The low rate of cancer in eastern parts of the world has been attributed to among other factors higher consumption of green tea. In 2004, a study showed that EGCG could actually kill cancer cells. The new study that was just released in the Journal of Clinical Oncology performed by researcher Tait D. Shanafelt, found that many patients were able to reverse the cancer as well as the symptoms associated with it. The team decided to perform the study after they noticed some of the patients voluntarily using green tea polyphenols and seeing positive health benefits. 

The study was designed to include 33 chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients being treated with doses of EGCG polyphenols in the range of 400-2,000 mg milligrams twice daily.

“We found not only that patients tolerated the green tea extract at very high doses, but that many of them saw regression to some degree of their CLL,” Shanafelt said. 

 There were two noticeable improvements in symptoms of CLL: 1) An increase in white blood cell counts and 2) and decrease in swelling of the lymph nodes. Lymph nodes decreased by 20 percent or more in 15 of 33 patients with 11 of them experiencing the improvement for two months.  Of 12 of the patients who began the study with swollen lymph nodes, 11 of them experienced a decrease of swelling of 50 percent or more.

Researchers hope that EGCG would provide at least a better quality of life for the patient as well as improving the effectiveness of traditional treatments. At this time, CLL is an incurable, aggressive disease with a fatality rate of 50 percent. 

Other benefits have been reported incuding green tea and weight loss, lowering blood pressure, lowering cholesterol, reducing inflammation and infections. Here is a good kidney cancer information website.