Tea Versus the Big "C"

Herbal medicine is rife with "just so" stories. St. John's wort is good for rheumatism and chamomile cures insomnia because Grandma said it was just so. But scientific evidence is emerging that Asia's favorite leafy tonic, green tea, may in fact be everything Granny said it was. A joint research team from the University of Murcia in Spain and the John Innes Centre in England has found that green tea is loaded with a compound, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), that has demonstrable cancer-fighting properties.

The conclusions of the study, published in the American medical journal Cancer Research , lend...