X-Message-Number: 21180 From: Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 09:38:15 EST Subject: tea and telomerase --part1_18b.1620f2f6.2b80fc57_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I suppose everyone knows already that epigallocatechin gallate from green tea is a telomerase inhibitor (I didn't until yesterday... I'd been hoping it attacked some other protein!), but this is very important info that should be made clear to any cancer sufferer. There's a Japanese group that has made some more-powerful synthetics (can't patent the original, maybe?... EGCG is powerful enough, and well-tested for toxicity) based on the EGCG molecule; they have a paper (in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, Vol. 1, 657-665, July 2002) with some nice TRFs showing shortening of telomeres in cell cultures. It seems clear that micromolar doses of EGCG-class compounds are a therapy that could kill off the leftover cancer cells after surgery in a nontoxic way. The great thing about EGCGs is that they don't interfere with other therapies and aren't toxic... of course the bad thing is that when they come into widespread use we'll get to find out just how many cancers can escape into the ALT pathway. The question arises whether a continuous high level of green tea consumption is optimum. There are cells that need to activate telomerase to function (stem cells of various types, reproductive cells, etc.) Perhaps giving the tea a rest for one month out of six would be a good idea? Of course tea has anti-tooth decay and pro- "good" cholesterol-carrying protein effects also, so it's hard to replace. -Bill Walker (Research Assistant, Shay-Wright lab) --part1_18b.1620f2f6.2b80fc57_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21180