Green Tea High On Believers’ List Of Cures

Green tea is the most common alternative medicine used by women to try to avoid cancer.

A study of almost 900 Australian women with a family history of breast cancer found that while complementary medicine use was very high, it was on the same level as other women, and only 6 per cent were using it specifically to block cancer.

The Melbourne cancer specialists who did the study said the results were reassuring, because there was “next to no evidence” that supplements, specialist diets or physical therapies could do anything to ward off the disease.

“We would hope that women would be using these things for their overall health benefits, not for preventing cancer specifically because there are no definite studies to say that this works,” said Dr Kathryn Field, an oncology researcher from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

“Thankfully that seems to be the case.”

The study, presented at a cancer conference in Chicago, is one of the biggest of its kind to investigate alternative therapy use for disease prevention.

It showed that about 50 per cent used some sort of non-conventional therapy. Vitamins and supplements, a low fat diet, massage therapy, green tea and omega-3 fatty acid were the most common.

Among those taking the therapies to avoid cancer, green tea was most widely used, followed by vitamins, soy-rich or low-fat diets and omega-3, none of which had proven disease-protective powers, Dr Field said.

“As well, people often don’t tell their doctors if they’re taking these things and there’s a good chance that they could interfere with other therapies and drug treatments.”

Australia’s complementary and alternative medicine industry is worth more than A$2 billion a year and is growing quickly.

Advocates say more money is needed for trials that prove the products work, but opponents say the trend is potentially dangerous and call for more rules.

This article was taken from: nzherald.co.nz