Tea consumption began in China around 2737 B.C. and has since become a staple among Asian and English cultures. The use of tea for medicinal purposes have prevailed for centuries in traditional Chinese medicine, but only recently gained prominence in the modern “alternative medicine” community. There has been increased interest and active biomedical research on tea extracts, with dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles published each month exploring the health properties of green tea. Through in vitro and animal studies, green tea (derived from the Camellia sinensis plant) and its polyphenol compounds — in particular, epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) — have been associated with possible risk reductions in some cardiovascular, neurologic, and oncologic disorders. Human trials are however sparse or equivocal.
I previously reported on a Japanese study correlating green tea consumption with a lower prevalence of cognitive dysfunction. A similar research group from the Tohoku University School of Medicine (Sendai, Japan) has continued to analyze the benefits of green tea with other health outcomes: causes of mortality, cardiovascular disease, pneumonia, and cancers. Their most recent study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, evaluated the influence of green tea consumption on the development of hematologic malignancies.
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Earlier this month, I presented the updated colon cancer screening guidelines and commented how virtual colonoscopy may improve screening rates due to its less invasive nature than the traditional colonoscopy. My premise was that patient discomfort served as a primary deterrent to higher rates of colonoscopy use. Data from a recently published Vanderbilt study, however, beg to differ and suggest that other factors account for the inadequate rates of colon cancer screening in the United States.
The study population was derived from the Southern Community Cohort Study (SCCS), a large research endeavor to characterize cancer trends and disparities across racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. The group comprises 51,454 patients (ages 40-79 years) collected from 48 community health centers. The exclusion criteria for this particular study included the following: race other than African-American or Caucasian; uncertainty of whether the patient has had a sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy; and, uncertainty of family cancer history. This left 41,830 participants, who were surveyed on personal demographics, personal history of colorectal polyps, family history of colon cancer, patterns of undergoing screening endoscopy, and last visit to a health care provider.
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Late last year, I met my new 64 year-old clinic patient who just moved into town. During a brief discussion about preventive health, I asked her when she had her last colonoscopy for colon cancer screening. She emphatically responded: “Never. I will probably be dead in 10 years anyway [from an unrelated cause]“. Her view on life may have been surprising, but her reluctance to obtain a colonoscopy wasn’t. Who could blame her? The prospect of having a scope inserted into the rectum and advanced through the colon is not appealing. Fortunately, there are alternate modalities for colon cancer screening, two of which (stool DNA and virtual colonoscopy) have just been added to official guidelines.
A consortium of specialty organizations (American Cancer Society, US Multi-Society Task Force on Colorectal Cancer, and American College of Radiology) recently published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians1 the first consensus guidelines for colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. The guidelines are designed for asymptomatic average-risk adults over the age of 50; these criteria exclude individuals with a personal or family history of CRC, adenomas, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), or other genetic risk factors.
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