A green tea CLL treatment? Green tea has long been celebrated for its antioxidant properties but with regards to cancer, there is no proof it is effective in treating the disease, says Dr. Nicole Lamanna, a leukemia specialist at Columbia University Medical Center. She says there was a study eight years ago by the Mayo Clinic in which high doses of a green tea extract, were given to patients with early-stage CLL. It appeared to slightly soften lymph nodes and make a little improvement in blood counts.
But Dr. Lamanna said the results were not “clinically meaningful.” They didn’t prove much about green tea, and that a green tea CLL treatment is likely ineffective. What’s more, Dr. Lamanna says some of the participants in the study also reported side effects of gas and were not able to continue taking the extract in such high doses.
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