Abstract
Background:
In vitro and in vivo studies suggested that polyphenol epigallocatechin 3-gallate (EGCG) in tea may have anti-carcinogenic effect on prostate cells, but this protective effect has less been examined in epidemiology studies. We aimed to investigate the association between prostate cancer (PCA) risk and habitual green tea intake among Chinese men in Hong Kong; meanwhile, the relationship with EGCG was also explored.
Methods:
We consecutively recruited 404 PCA cases and 395 controls from the same hospital who had complete data on habitual tea consumption, including green, oolong, black and pu’er tea. We reconstructed the level of EGCG intake according to a standard questionnaire and the analytic values for EGCG extracted from the literature published by Lin et al. in 2003. We calculated odds ratios (ORs) for tea consumption and EGCG intake using unconditional multiple logistic regression, and examined their exposure–-response relationships with PCA risk.
Results:
A total of 32 cases and 50 controls reported habitual green tea drinking, showing an adjusted OR of 0.60 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.37, 0.98). A moderate excess risk was observed among the habitual pu’er tea drinkers (OR=1.44, 95% CI: 1.02, 1.91). A significantly lower intake of EGCG was observed among cases (54.4 mg) than the controls (72.5 mg), which resulted in an inverse gradient of PCA risk with the increasing intake of EGCG (test for trend, P=0.015).
Conclusion:
PCA risk among Chinese men in Hong Kong was inversely associated with green tea consumption and EGCG intake, but these results need to be replicated in larger studies.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 4 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $64.75 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Department of Health Screening for Prostate Cancer: Iinformation for Men and Their Family. Department of Health: Hong Kong, China, 2013.
Hong Kong Cancer Fund Latest Cancer Statistics. Hong Kong Cancer Fund: Hong Kong, China, 2012.
American Cancer Society Prostate Cancer Overview. American Cancer Society: Atlanta, GA, USA, 2016.
Jian L, Xie LP, Lee AH, Binns CW . Protective effect of green tea against prostate cancer: a case-control study in southeast China. Int J Cancer 2004; 108: 130–135.
Kurahashi N, Sasazuki S, Iwasaki M, Inoue M, Tsugane S, Group JS . Green tea consumption and prostate cancer risk in Japanese men: a prospective study. Am J Epidemiol 2008; 167: 71–77.
Lin YS, Tsai YJ, Tsay JS, Lin JK . Factors affecting the levels of tea polyphenols and caffeine in tea leaves. J Agric Food Chem 2003; 51: 1864–1873.
Peterson J, Dwyer J, Bhagwat S, Haytowitz D, Holden J, Eldridge AL et al. Major flavonoids in dry tea. J Food Compost Anal 2005; 18: 487–501.
Ren F, Zhang S, Mitchell SH, Butler R, Young CY . Tea polyphenols down-regulate the expression of the androgen receptor in LNCaP prostate cancer cells. Oncogene 2000; 19: 1924–1932.
Yang CS, Chung JY, Yang G, Chhabra SK, Lee MJ . Tea and tea polyphenols in cancer prevention. J Nutr 2000; 130: 472S–478S.
Geybels MS, Neuhouser ML, Stanford JL . Associations of tea and coffee consumption with prostate cancer risk. Cancer Causes Control 2013; 24: 941–948.
Brausi M, Rizzi F, Bettuzzi S . Chemoprevention of human prostate cancer by green tea catechins: Two years later. A follow-up update. Eur Urol 2008; 54: 472–473.
Kumar NB, Pow-Sang J, Egan KM, Spiess PE, Dickinson S, Salup R et al. Randomized, placebo-controlled trial of green tea catechins for prostate cancer prevention. Cancer Prevent Res 2015; 8: 879–887.
Kikuchi N, Ohmori K, Shimazu T, Nakaya N, Kuriyama S, Nishino Y et al. No association between green tea and prostate cancer risk in Japanese men: the Ohsaki Cohort Study. Br J Cancer 2006; 95: 371–373.
Ellison LF . Tea and other beverage consumption and prostate cancer risk: a Canadian retrospective cohort study. Eur J Cancer Prev 2000; 9: 125–130.
Montague JA, Butler LM, Wu AH, Genkinger JM, Koh WP, Wong AS et al. Green and black tea intake in relation to prostate cancer risk among Singapore Chinese. Cancer Causes Control 2012; 23: 1635–1641.
Hospital Authority Hong Kong Cancer Registry. Hospital Authority: Honk Kong, China, 2013.
Bhagwat S, Haytowitz D . USDA Database for the Flavonoid Content of Selected Foods Release 32. United States Department of Agriculture Food Composition Databases: USA, 2015.
Kelsey JL, Whittemore AS, Evans AS, Thompson WD . Methods in Observational Epidemiology. Oxford University Press: Oxford, UK, 1996.
Balentine DA, Wiseman SA, Bouwens LC . The chemistry of tea flavonoids. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 1997; 37: 693–704.
Jeng KC, Chen CS, Fang YP, Hou RC, Chen YS . Effect of microbial fermentation on content of statin, GABA, and polyphenols in Pu-Erh tea. J Agric Food Chem 2007; 55: 8787–8792.
Chen JL, Li WX, Yang GY, Zhou ZT, Zhu W, Liu HZ . Biological contamination of Puer tea in Guangzhou tea market. Carcinogenesis Teratogens Mutagenesis 2010; 23: 68–71.
Hong Kong Observatory Climate of Hong Kong. Hong Kong Observatory: Hong Kong, China, 2015.
Copeland KT, Checkoway H, McMichael AJ, Holbrook RH . Bias due to misclassification in the estimation of relative risk. Am J Epidemiol 1977; 105: 488–495.
Lee MJ, Wang ZY, Li H, Chen L, Sun Y, Gobbo S et al. Analysis of plasma and urinary tea polyphenols in human subjects. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 1995; 4: 393–399.
Yang CS, Chen L, Lee MJ, Balentine D, Kuo MC, Schantz SP . Blood and urine levels of tea catechins after ingestion of different amounts of green tea by human volunteers. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 1998; 7: 351–354.
Acknowledgements
The report was substantially supported by a grant from the Health and Medical Research Fund of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China; Project No. 11121091 and 12131081. The funding source had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis or interpretation of the findings. Sincere thanks also go to our research staffs (Miss Jenny Yip Siu Ying and Miss Tess Tsoi Hui Man) for their data collection.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Supplementary Information accompanies the paper on the Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases website
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lee, P., Ng, C., Liu, Z. et al. Reduced prostate cancer risk with green tea and epigallocatechin 3-gallate intake among Hong Kong Chinese men. Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis 20, 318–322 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/pcan.2017.18
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/pcan.2017.18
This article is cited by
-
Grüner Tee – Daten und Studien zur chinesischen und westlichen Wirkung
Chinesische Medizin / Chinese Medicine (2024)
-
Processing Technologies for the Extraction of Value-Added Bioactive Compounds from Tea
Food Engineering Reviews (2023)