After water, tea is the most frequently consumed beverage in the world. Reportedly discovered by a Chinese emperor more than 4,000 years ago, tea has become an integral component of traditional Chinese medicine.
Each month, more research documenting the effectiveness of tea in the promotion of health and wellness is being published in the general health literature. Two recent studies of note - one in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (JAFC),1 the other presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's (AACR) annual meeting in April2 - have shown that certain ingredients in tea may reduce the incidence of diabetes and help prevent the development of prostate cancer in men, respectively.
Green Tea and Prostate Cancer
At the AACR meeting, Dr. Saverio Bettuzzi of the University of Parma in Italy, along with a research team from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, presented the results of a study conducted on men at increased risk of developing prostate cancer. The study showed that substances in tea known as green tea catechins, or GTCs, were more than 90 percent successful in preventing the development of prostate cancer for a minimum of one year.