Green Tea Could Counter Oral Cancer, and Here's How

This was a huge surprise for researchers, as green tea is famous for its antioxidant properties, where high concentrations of catechins normally prevent these types of damaging reactions from occurring.

In non-cancer cells, the tea compounds did just that, with EGCG even helping to protect cells from free radicals by turning on a protein called sirtuin 3 that helps produce and use antioxidants.

Lambert suggests that EGCG then should be thought of as a switch - one that could be promising in future research looking into treatments for more than just oral cancer.

"It plays an important role in mitochondrial function and in antioxidant response in lots of tissues in the body, so the idea that EGCG might selectively affect the activity of sirtuin 3 in cancer cells - to turn it off - and in normal cells - to turn it on - is probably applicable in multiple kinds of cancers."

Still, it's important to note that EGCG work has not even moved on to animal studies just yet, meaning that we are a very long way away from turning it into an effective treatment option.

It also should go without saying that chugging green tea is not going to be enough.

For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).