[PDF] Tea polyphenols: prevention of cancer and optimizing health. | Semantic Scholar (2025)

Most animal studies indicate that tea has strong chemopreventive effects against lung tumorigenesis, and cell cycle arrest and apoptosis induced by green tea are probably the two most significant factors.

It is logical that future clinical studies should focus on examining the efficacy of tea and its active constituents, such as epigallocatechin-3-gallate and theaflavins, in chemoprevention as an alternative to pharmacological agents.

The use of the nontoxic green tea or EGCG as anticancer agent is highly recommended and confirmed by experiments with animals as well as cultured cancer cells.

Evidence is accumulating that catechins and theaflavins, which are the main polyphenolic compounds of green and black tea, respectively, are responsible for most of the physiological effects of tea.

It is demonstrated that green tea or EGCG have anticancer and cancer preventive properties and the mechanisms of these activities are studied in details.

Although many studies have shown beneficial properties of Camellia sinensis, much more epidemiological research remains to be conducted in order to observe the effects on human cancer, and recent findings on the anticancer properties of tea are summarized.

...

...

Based on available information, epidemiologic and experimental studies are ongoing to draw the possible relationship between tea consumption and cancer causation and prevention and Appropriate strategies for future clinical chemoprevention trials to translate animal data to human cancer risk are warranted.

This review encompasses epidemiologic studies of stomach, colon, and lung cancer as well as the evidence of a relationship between tea drinking and cancer at large in humans, which suggest an increased risk with increased tea consumption.

This review examines the available data from animal studies on the effects of tea in the prevention of cancer and finds the strongest evidence linking green tea use to reduction in cancer risk in parts of Asia.

Drinking green tea can encourage cancer chemotherapy and may improve the quality of life of clinical patients, as well as enhance the inhibitory effects of doxorubicin on tumor growth.

The inverse association between consumption of green tea and various serum markers shows that green tea may act protectively against cardiovascular disease and disorders of the liver.

Green tea may protect against cancer by causing cell cycle arrest and inducing apoptosis, and needs to be evaluated in human trials.

It is inferred and subsequently demonstrated that one of the major ingredients of green tea inhibits urokinase, an enzyme crucial for cancer growth.

It is shown that single or multiple applications of GTP on SENCAR mouse ear prior to or after the application of 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate (TPA) afford significant protection against TPA-induced edema, and that GTP possesses potential as a cancer chemopreventive agent against stage I tumor promotion.

...

...