According to the experts who studied lung cancer at a medical university in Taiwan, drinking green tea may offer some protection against the disease. The latest work in more than 500 people adds to growing evidence suggesting the beverage has anti-cancer powers.

In the study, smokers and non-smokers who drank at least a cup a day cut their lung cancer risk significantly. The protection was greatest for people carrying certain genes. But cancer experts said the findings did not change the fact that smoking is bad for health.

Basically, green tea is made from the dried leaves of the Asian plant Camellia sinesis and is drunk widely across Asia. In fact, the rates of many cancers are much lower in Asia than other parts of the world, which has led some to link the two.
Laboratory studies have shown that extracts from green tea, called polyphenols, can stop cancer cells from growing. But results from human studies have been mixed. Some have shown a protective effect while others have failed to find any evidence of protection.

Dr I-Hsin Lin, of Shan Medical University, found that among smokers and non-smokers, people who did not drink green tea were more than five times as likely to get lung cancer than those who drank at least one cup of green tea a day. But, Yinka Ebo of Cancer Research UK said that the findings should not be used as an excuse to keep smoking. Smoking tobacco fills your lungs with around 80 cancer-causing chemicals. Drinking green tea is not going to compensate for that. The best thing a smoker can do to reduce their risk of lung cancer, and more than a dozen other cancer types, is to quit.

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