Green Tea and Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer is a particularly deadly form of cancer as it’s virtually symptomless in its early stages. By the time the disease is detected, it’s usually in an advanced stage and survival rates are not encouraging. But recent studies have shown that drinking green tea may reduce the risk of developing ovarian cancer in the first place and increase survival time in those who do get the disease.

An epidemiologic study of 61,057 Swedish women ages 40 to 76 compared the tea consumption (black or green) of those who developed ovarian cancer to those who did not develop the disease. The women filled out a food frequency questionnaire that included their tea drinking habits and were followed for an average of 15 years to see who would develop the cancer. At the study’s end, the researchers found that the more tea the women drank, the lower their risk of developing ovarian cancer. Specifically, for each daily cup of tea consumed, the risk of ovarian cancer dropped 18%.¹

But what about women who have already developed ovarian cancer? In a study reported in the International Journal of Cancer, 254 women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer were interviewed about the frequency and amount of green tea they consumed post-diagnosis. Three years later, follow-up interviews were conducted. Of the green tea drinkers, 78% survived until the time of the follow-up interview, compared with only 48% of the non-tea drinkers.²

Finally, a test of the effect of green tea’s EGCg on ovarian cancer cells found that it induced the death of these cells by increasing intracellular levels of hydrogen peroxide.³ EGCg also enhanced the cells’ susceptibility to cisplatin, one of the main chemotherapeutic drugs used to target ovarian cancer. In other words, not only did EGCg hasten the death of ovarian cancer cells, it made them more likely to succumb to chemotherapy.

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