Research progress in mechanisms of functional components in tea on lung cancer / 中草药

ABSTRACT

Lung cancer has the highest incidence among all of the world’s cancer diseases. Since the incidence and mortality of lung cancer have been increasing year after year, how to prevent and control it arouses general concern in the world. Tea is a healthy drink and has sweet-bitter flavor. It is also slightly cold and non-toxic. Many experimental studies show that a variety of functional components included in tea can be used for preventing, directly intervening and assistantly treating lung cancer or other malignant tumors, so they will be a potential candidate for natural antitumor drugs. For example, tea polyphenols, caffeine, tea pigment, theanine and tea polysaccharide can well inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells, induce apoptosis of tumor cells as well as regulate the expression of related gene and protein. The paper reviews some major researches of prevention and treatment on lung cancer by functional components of tea since 1970, in order to provide reference of systematically cognizing tea’s mechanism on opposing lung cancer, using tea and functional components to resist lung cancer in a safe and effective way, cultivating new varieties of tea armed with high level of specific components and developing new tea products.