Family Life

06.10.09 | FL News Team

A human study is underway in Arizona to determine whether the many purported health benefits of green tea might include a non-surgical way of preventing cervical cancer. Funded by the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Prevention, the clinical study will eventually involve more than 150 women in Arizona, California and North Carolina. All of the women involved will have already been infected with human papillomavirus, HPV, a disease known to cause cervical cancer. Researchers will give some of the women a green tea extract equivalent to drinking eight-cups of the brew. The others will receive a placebo. It's hoped the extract will destroy the HPV before it's able to cause precancerous lesions and other problems.

HPV is no small problem. The researchers say up to 50-percent of sexually active Americans will contract the virus at some point in their life. While the majority of infections clear up without treatment, many don't and can cause a wide range of unwanted issues up to and including cancer. There is a drug, Gardasil, approved by the FDA as a vaccine against the virus but there's a catch. It can only be administered to women who've never been infected. The green tea extract, it's hoped, will be an alternative treatment for women who are already infected.