The medical news agency Newswise reports a study on bladder cancer cells lines showing that green tea extract has potential as an anti-cancer agent, proving for the first time that it is able to target cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone.

Scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA),were able to show that green tea extract interrupts a process that is crucial in allowing cancer to become invasive and spread to other areas of the body.

Green tea extract affects actin remodeling, an event associated with cell movement When actin remodeling is activated, the cancer cells can move and invade other healthy cells and eventually other organs. The green tea extract made the cancer cells more mature and made them bind together more closely - a process called cell adhesion. Both the maturity of the cells and the adhesion inhibited the mobility of the cancer cells, “In effect, the green tea extract may keep the cancer cells confined and localized, where they are easier to treat and the prognosis is better,” said JianYu Rao, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and the study’s senior author. “Cancer cells are invasive and green tea extract interrupts the invasive process of the cancer.”

The study was published in the Feb. 15, 2005 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Clinical Cancer Research.