Consuming green tea could prevent oral cancer for smoker

Green tea has been considering as one of traditional herbs by many civilizations for hundreds of years. It is believed by many people it can counter the carcinogenic compound. Scientifically speaking, green tea has many antioxidants which can give benefits particularly in preventing oral cancer.

Consuming green tea in certain amount could prevent oral cancer

Green tea is produced from the same family as Oolong and black tea. This tea is different from the others because it has least oxidization level. Tea comprises many bioactive compounds which can act as anti-cancer compounds. Catechins, flavonols, lignans, and phenolic acids. The chemical composition of tea is different due to differences in processing the leaves. As mentioned previously, the low level of oxidation is indicated by the existence of polyphenols.

Tea has polyphenol which is a very strong antioxidant so it can reduce the risk of getting cancer. One of that is the oral cancer which is caused by smoking. As we know that, the cigars are consisted toxic, carcinogenic compounds when burning. These chemical compounds contribute to the triggering process of reactive oxygen species (ROS).

Smoking triggers the oral cancer

A single cigarette smoke contains free radical compounds in phase of gas and in tar (Church & Pryor, 1985). These poisonous matters are responsible to chronic illnesses such as cancer and heart attack. The free radical gases could react with the tissue within the oral and causes the reaction. The inhibitors generate the oxidative damage to DNA hence causing carcinogenesis. With the popularity of smoking among youthful in developing and under developing countries, the risk of getting cancer in young age is increasing.

Smoking has been not only becoming quite popular in developing and under developing countries but also serious worldwide issues. Among the young generation, their opinion about smoking is many including opening communication and the indicator of being adults. Nevertheless, the smokers do not care too much as the photographs of the diseases have been attaching within the cigar’s packages. Today, it can be estimated the numbers of young Indonesian are high which means the next generation potentially is in high risk of oral cancer.

Consuming green tea to reduce the risk

The amount of antioxidants during the study
(Image is credited by Azimi, et al., 2017)

As we mentioned above that one of the tea, which is the green tea, comprises antioxidants. Many research had demonstrated the benefits as anticancer. Research conducted by (Schwartz, et al., 2005) and (Hakim, et al., 2003) set up controlled experiments to human and the findings were interesting in the DNA damage. Both of the research found that the green tea can reduce the DNA damage.

Therefore, how can the green tea can reduce the risk? According to (Azimi, et al., 2017), the green tea stimulate the biological process of saliva in smokers to increase. The amount of saliva was significance compared to the non-smokers. They also found that the green tea triggered the increasing of production of salivary antioxidant status in smokers.

The study employed 20 volunteers of smokers paired with 20 healthy non-smokers. The participants then were instructed to consume two cups of green tea in a day. The consumption was conducted for 21 days and the saliva of each volunteer was collected weekly in three times. But, why it has to be saliva?

Antioxidants in Saliva

Oral comprises many things including teeth and tongue. Biologically speaking, the oral or mouth is one of the most common organ which can be attacked by cancer cells. The cancer cells or carcinoma can be developed in salivary glands, the tissue, melanocytes and lymph. As we know that carcinoma is influenced by either smoking and alcohol or the infection provided by human papilloma virus.

In mouth, the saliva is needed for eating so the food can be digested into the next process. The physical form of saliva is fluid with certain viscosity and in term of composition, 98 per cent of it is water. The others two per cent are proteins, enzymes, substances and many more. But, the true function of this saliva is in preventing action because many bacteria and even more viruses are able to enter the oral throughout eating. So, the saliva helps the mouth to “wash” the bacteria or viruses by giving antioxidants. There are natural antibacterial compounds and antioxidants, they are:

1. Thiocyanate
2. Hydrogen peroxide
3. Immunoglobulin A
4. Uric acid
5. Albumin
6. Ascorbic acid
7. Glutathione
8. Antioxidant enzymes

Conclusion

The study employed either smokers and non-smokers people found interesting result. For smoker, the study found significant increasing of antioxidants after 7 to 21 days. The total antioxidants indicate that the green tea consumption can reduce the risk of carcinoma in oral and it can prevent oral cancer.

References

[1] Azimi, S. et al., 2017. Does green tea consumption improve the salivary antioxidant status of smokers?. Archives of Oral Biology, Issue 78, pp. 1 - 5.
[2] Church, D. F. & Pryor, A. W., 1985. Free-Radical chemistry of cigarette smoke and its toxilogical implications. Environment health perspectives, Volume 64, pp. 111 - 126.
[3] Hakim, I. A. et al., 2003. Effect of increased tea consumption on oxidative DNA damage among smokers: A randomized controlled study. The Journal of Nutrition, 10(133), pp. 3303S - 3309S.
[4] Schwartz, J. L., Baker, V., Larios, E. & Chung, L. F., 2005. Molecular and cellular effects of green tea on oral cells of smokers: A pilot study. Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, 1(49), pp. 43 - 51.
[5] Image of the green tea is downloaded from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com