light em up!

Great news for those without any self respect. A new study has found the drinking copious amounts of green tea may help to dampen the effects of smoking on your lungs. Now if only it could help with the secondary smoke your kids have to suck in, the nicotine stains on walls and clothing and the damage it does to the environment. heres the article


CORONADO, Calif.—Drinking green tea could alter the effect of smoking on lung cancer, according to a study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research-IASLC Joint Conference on Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer Jan. 11-14.

Researchers enrolled 170 patients with lung cancer and 340 healthy patients as controls. They administered questionnaires to obtain demographic characteristics, cigarette smoking habits, green tea consumption, dietary intake of fruits and vegetables, cooking practices and family history of lung cancer. They also performed genotyping on insulin-like growth factors as polymorphisms on the following insulin-like growth factors: IGF1, IGF2 and IGFBP3, which have all been reported to be associated with cancer risk.

Among smokers and non-smokers, those who did not drink green tea had a 5.16-fold increased risk of lung cancer compared with those who drank at least one cup of green tea per day. Among smokers, those who did not drink green tea at all had a 12.71-fold increased risk of lung cancer compared with those who drank at least one cup of green tea per day.

Researchers suspect genetics may play a role in this risk differential. Green tea drinkers with non-susceptible IGF1 (CA)19/(CA)19 and (CA)19/X genotypes reported a 66-percent reduction in lung cancer risk as compared with green tea drinkers carrying the IGF1 X/X genotype. Heavy smokers carrying susceptible IGF1, IGF2 and IGFBP3 genotypes also had a higher risk of lung cancer compared with nonsmokers carrying non-susceptible IGF1, IGF2 and IGFBP3 genotypes.
Sources:

* American Association for Cancer Research: Green Tea Could Modify the Effect of Cigarette Smoking on Lung Cancer Risk

the many faces of tea

this is a little tea suprise. there is another white tea, one that is far rarer than the more popularly known white tea. An Ji Bai Cha is derived from a recently discovered legendary tea bush cited in a 900 year old Chinese classic. thought to be purely legend until the discovery of a single teabush in the 80's (i thought everything from the 80's only came in luminous colours till now)this rare find has almost white leaves when infused and is technicaly a green tea - hence it is a white tea due to the colour of its leaves. most white tea is defined as such by the colour of its infusion as well as the nature of processing (i.e. no curative process). An Ji Bai is extremely rich in amino acids but falls down when it comes to polyphenols and cholorophyll. check out http://www.teaspring.com for a stockist of this tea