Green tea inhibits anti-cancer drugs

Contrary to popular beliefs about the benefits of green tea, Southern California University scientists (USC) found that an additive is widely used in the production of inhibitory green teas. action of drugs to treat blood cancer.

The study found that a green tea extract, called EGCG, completely destroys the activity of Velcade in tumor-bearing mice, the work will be published in Blood magazine.

Associate Professor, Dr. Axel H. Schonthal, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Keck School of Medicine, USC, who led the study, said: 'The discovery of green tea or EGCC inhibits the activity of Velcade is complete. all unexpected. Our hypothesis is quite the opposite, we had expected that green tea (or EGCC) combined with Velcade would give us a higher treatment ability than just Velcade. '

Herbal remedies, including green tea, become a popular method of enhancing chemotherapy activity for cancer patients. However, additional compounds that most of their benefits or adverse effects have not been studied are not controlled in production.

Using subclinical models and mice, scientists found that Velcade's inhibitory action was primarily based on chemical reactions. The interaction of EGCG and Velcade is able to form chemical bonds, which means that Velcade molecules will lose their ability to bind to target cancer cells.

Medical tests to verify results on people will have medical ethical difficulties because they can have consequences that are out of control. However, scientists hope that the results of this study will be applied to cancer patients.

'The immediate conclusion from our study recommends that patients undergoing cancer treatment with Velcade need to avoid green tea, and especially those that are concentrated green tea products sold freely at real stores. Products'. Schonthal also emphasized: 'Another important thing is to send this message to health organizations to control the use of Velcade for patients.'

Schonthal points out that for cancer patients using Velcade, reducing the amount of additives in green tea may be better for them, but that will also increase the cost of the product.

'Importantly, in addition to not being able to attack cancer cells, Velcade will also not produce side effects (which are unwanted effects in the use of anticancer chemotherapy). As a result, patients feel more comfortable and assume that green tea helps reduce these side effects, while in fact Velcade has lost its main activity. "

These results are part of a major scientific work: 'The nature of green tea essences combined with chemotherapy in cancer treatment: harmlessness' is studied by a group of scientists.

"Obviously, the combination of green tea or EGCG with Velcade is a good example of 'harming.' But we are also investigating other popular drugs, the drugs that EGCG supplements are expected. Waiting will bring better benefits as originally anticipated than harms from them. '