Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Now I know I'm known for explaining how not to do certain things. Just look at my books,

how not to die. The one I'm working on right now, how not to die it. But what I actually

have to share with you is quite positive and boils down to this. What's the best way

to live a healthy life? Here are some answers. Today we raise a glass to the power of tea. It's

getting to be iced tea weather. Great way to flood your body with phytonutrients throughout

the day. Green tea has been tested to try to stop and reverse the progression of oral

cancer, lung cancer, cervical cancer, colon cancer. What did they find?

Not only made the consumption of tea boost the antioxidant power of our bloodstream,

within minutes of consumption, and decreased the amount of free radical DNA damage throughout

our systems over time, can also increase the antioxidant power of our saliva, and decrease

the DNA damage within the inner cheek cells of smokers, though not as much as stopping

smoking altogether. So might this help pre-cancerous oral lesions from turning into cancerous?

Oral lesions, within 100,000 people develop oral cancer, annually, worldwide, with a five-year

overall survival rate of less than the flip of a corn. Oral cancer frequently arises from

pre-cancerous lesions in the mouth, which each have a few percent chance every year from

turning cancerous, so what a perfect opportunity to see if green tea can help. 59 patients with

pre-cancerous oral lesions were randomized into a tea group in which capsules of powdered

tea extract were given, as well as having the lesions painted with the green tea powder,

versus a control group that essentially got sugar pills and were painted with nothing. Within

six months, lesions in 11 of the 29 in the tea group shrunk compared to only three out of 30

in the placebo group. The results indicate that tea treatment can improve the clinical

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