Did you know that June was National Iced Tea Month, and that June 09 iwasthe seventh such annual celebration? Well the reason is that Iced Tea was created in the United States a hundred years ago and now June is observed across the country as National Iced Tea Month in order to encourage more people to drink something that is cool and refreshing, potentially good for your health, and almost universally loved all across the U.S.!
Some Heartening Green Tea News:
But today’s post in not about the National Iced Tea Month, which was just an amusing detail we wanted to share with our readers. The real purport of this post is the heartening news that green tea may be good for us in more ways than one; most significantly it has now been seen as being useful in the treatment of leukemia.
Findings of a New Study:
As reported by the Telegraph, scientists have now found that high doses of a chemical found in the drink could kill cancer cells and reduce symptoms of the disease of blood cancer or leukemia. Scientists have long been examining the fact that there is a lower incidence of cancer among those societies that consume more green tea. Earlier tests performed on mice have also revealed that active ingredient in the tea, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) can effectively destroy cancer cells!
One scientist involved in the green tea study was quoted as having said that it was found that patients tolerated the green tea extract at very high doses, and also that many of them saw regression to some degree of their chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
Hope for the Future:
It is now thought that this chemical found in green tea may go some way in reinforcing anti cancer drugs and making them more powerful. Patients were administered the green tea extract to find that there was a beneficial effect on them.
There is also the hope that the chemical in green tea, epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG, could stabilize the disease for many patients in the early stage or improve the success rates of other therapies like chemotherapy.
