HEALTH UPDATE: green tea plus painkiller slows prostate cancer

A component of green tea combined with a low dose of a COX-2 inhibitor may act in concert to slow the spread of human prostate cancer.
In the journal Clinical Cancer Research, they report that low doses of the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib (sold as Celebrex), given along with a green tea polyphenol slowed the growth of prostate cancer in cell cultures and in a mouse model of the disease.
"Celecoxib and green tea have a synergistic effect, each triggering cellular pathways, that, combined, are more powerful than either agent alone," Dr Hasan Mukhtar from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said in a statement.
Prior studies have linked the COX-2 enzyme to many cancer types, including prostate cancer. Mukhtar and colleagues previously found that COX-2 inhibitors like Celebrex suppress prostate cancer in animals. COX-2 inhibitors also have been shown to have adverse effects on the heart when taken at high doses for long periods of time. Mukhtar's team also previously found that the green tea polyphenol called EGCG has cancer-fighting abilities of its own; EGCG, they found, modulates key chemical pathways that fuel the death of human prostate cancer cells.