London - It is already credited with a host of health benefits. Now, it seems green tea makes breast cancer drug Herceptin work better.
Scientists joined one of the key chemicals in green tea to Herceptin and gave it to mice with cancer. The two-in-one jab was better at shrinking the tumours than Herceptin alone.
More of it reached the tumours, rather than being wasted on healthy tissue, and it spent longer in the blood – perhaps explaining why it worked better.
Cancer drugs often contain a second compound designed to ferry them to where they are needed. Normally, this “carrier” does nothing to fight the disease but studies have found that the green tea ingredient, EGCG, can kill cancer cells.
Nell Barrie, of Cancer Research UK, said: “This study comes up with an ingenious way to use a chemical from green tea as a drug ‘carrier’ to attack cancer cells.”
Herceptin treats an especially fast-growing form of breast cancer. The drug is also used to treat stomach cancer and has been taken by 1.7 million worldwide.
Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology research was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. - Daily Mail