After heart disease, cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Experts believe that over 10% of all human deaths are linked to cancer. The good news is that although we still don’t know exactly what causes this disease, there are some very strong links between cancer and our diets. In fact, statistics suggest that up to one in three cancers are linked to diet and by consuming the right foods and drinks, we could cut our cancer risk significantly.

Green tea is one drink in particular that has been heavily promoted as having cancer fighting properties. But can it really protect us from this disease? In this article, I take a deeper look at the research linking green tea with cancer prevention and discuss just how effective it really is.

How Green Tea Fights Cancer

Cancer is a disease that develops when the DNA in your body’s cells becomes damaged and they start to grow in a rapid, uncontrollable way. This uncontrolled cellular growth ultimately causes a tumor to develop which destroys the cells around it and can also spread to other areas of the body.

Green tea helps prevent cancer by supplying the body with a selection of cancer fighting nutrients. These nutrients protect the DNA in your body’s cells from the damage discussed above and also inhibit the growth of cancer cells.

While these individual nutrients can be found in other foods and drinks, green tea is one of the only drinks which contains such a large number of them in a single serving. This is why nutritionally, green tea one of the best drinks out there for keeping cancer at bay.

The list below provides further details on the nutrients in green tea and the cancers they can prevent:

Polyphenols In Green Tea

The polyphenols are a group of potent nutrients that can be found in green tea. They all act as antioxidants in the human body and the following four have also been linked with cancer prevention:

1) Epigallocatechin Gallate:- Protects against bladder cancer, brain cancer, breast cancer, cervical cancer, prostate cancer and skin cancer.

2) Epicatechin Gallate:- Protects against breast cancer and skin cancer.

3) Gallocatechol:- Provides all round cancer protection.

4) Catechin:- Provides all round cancer protection.

Vitamins & Minerals In Green Tea

The vitamins and minerals are two groups of nutrients that are essential for the proper functioning of your body. Green tea contains a number of health boosting vitamins and minerals including the following three which have cancer fighting properties:

1) Vitamin C:- Provides all round cancer protection.

2) Vitamin E:- Provides all round cancer protection.

3) Selenium:- Protects against colon cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer.

Summary

Green tea is undoubtedly one of the best cancer fighting beverages available. However, as with many things concerning our health, it needs to be a collective effort. Drinking green tea is only a small part of your lifestyle and if the other areas aren’t up to scratch, it’s not going to make much of a difference.

For all round cancer protection you need to be active every day, eating a diet that is rich in natural, unprocessed foods and avoiding activities that increase your cancer risk, such as smoking and heavy alcohol consumption. Once you are doing all this, drinking green tea will give your cancer fighting efforts a huge boost and go a long way towards helping you avoid this nasty disease completely.