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Green Tea Helps Prevent Bladder Cancer

Research by a multi-departmental team from UCLA has produced valuable insights into how green tea extract might be capable of acting against the invasive growth of bladder cancer tumors. Green tea extract has been shown, via a mechanism that affects cell movement, to target cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone.

For cancer to grow and spread, the malignant cells must be able to move, and their movement depends on a process called actin remodeling, which itself is carefully regulated by complex signaling pathways, including the Rho pathway.

By inducing Rho signaling, green tea causes cancer cells to mature more rapidly and to bind together more closely, a process called cell adhesion. Both their increased maturity and cell adhesion inhibit cancer cells' mobility, according to Rao, senior author of the study, published in the February 2005 issue of Clinical Cancer Research, in which green tea's effects on Rho signaling were noted.

"Cancer cells are invasive and green tea extract interrupts the invasive process of the cancer…In effect, the green tea extract may keep the cancer cells confined and localized, where they are easier to treat and the prognosis is better," explained Rao.

About 56,000 new cases of bladder cancer are diagnosed each year, making it the fifth most common cancer in the United States. About half of all bladder cancers are believed to be related to cigarette smoking. Bladder cancer can be difficult to detect in the early, most treatable stages, yet, when not found early, the tumors can be aggressive, and more than half of patients with advanced cancers experience recurrences. In the next phase of his research, Rao and his team will analyze urine from bladder patients, looking particularly for biomarkers associated with actin remodelling and the activation of the Rho pathway, to determine which subset of patients might benefit most from green tea.