Extraordinary anticancer effect of green tea and red light

Increasing observational evidence suggests that epigallocatechin gallate--the major polyphenolic component of green tea--is instrumental in suppressing the growth of cancer cells. Therefore, methods that promise to enhance the suppressive potential of green tea have the highest clinical relevance.

Human cervical cancer cells, HeLa, the first continuous cancer cell line, represent a mainstay model in cancer research. Green tea inhibited their growth, whereas their exposure to moderate levels of laser light resulted in an opposite effect. Both effects are individually documented in the literature.

HeLa cells were supplemented with green tea, irradiated with moderately intense laser light (670 nm) for 1 min, and incubated for 52 h.

We found an extraordinary inhibition of HeLa cells by a combination of green tea and red light. We achieved an inhibition of 1,460%, compared with non-irradiated samples.

Our result receives clinical relevance from a recent study in which epigallocatechin gallate suppressed the growth of melanoma in vivo.