Can Green Tea Prevent Prostate Cancer?

Prostate cancer is much rarer in Asian populations when compared with Western people. The reason for this is not entirely understood. One theory is that Asian men drink a great deal more tea than Western men.

In Japan in 1990 and 1993, researchers set up a long-term study of almost 50,000 men aged 40 to 69. Part of the study asked them about their daily green tea consumption. At the end of 2004, only 404 men had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Green tea was not linked to a lower risk of localized prostate cancer; however, the more green tea a man drank, the less likely he was to have been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. Men who drank five or more cups of green tea a day were 50% less likely than men who drank less than 1 cup a day to have advanced prostate cancer.

So does green tea prevent prostate cancer?

Not exactly. It seems to be linked to a lower rate of advanced prostate cancer, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, you have to drink around 5 cups of green tea a day to see these benefits, something that many Western men would find challenging. Researchers haven’t entirely isolated the beneficial element in green tea, so as of now, green tea supplements haven’t been proven.

Have a cup or two of green tea a day anyway, though, it is good for your overall health, not just your prostate.

Read More on the Health Benefits of Green Tea.

_Source:

Norie Kurahashi, Shizuka Sasazuki, Motoki Iwasaki, Manami Inoue and Shoichiro Tsugane for the JPHC Study Group. Green Tea Consumption and Prostate Cancer Risk in Japanese Men: A Prospective Study. American Journal of Epidemiology 2008 167(1):71-77.