A new study has hit the wires. It offers some promising news about colon cancer. And while the results are pretty preliminary, they’re still very hopeful.

The study says a South American tea can kill colon cancer cells.

The research comes from Dr. Elvira de Mejia. She’s a leading food chemistry researcher at the University of Illinois.

She’s impressed by what the tea is capable of. She says it can make cancer cells literally self-destruct.

But that’s not the only way the tea combats cancer. She says it also slashes markers of inflammation. And that’s important because inflammation can trigger cancer growth.

Mechanism Leads to Cell Death

The tea is called mate tea. It comes from the yerba plant. (That’s a shrub that mainly grows in South America.) Mate tea is often compared to green tea because of its many health benefits. But their components are pretty different. Green tea is high in epigallocatechin gallate. Mate tea on the other hand is high in chlorogenic acid.

Dr. de Mejia says the tea damages the DNA of cancer cells and kills them. She thinks a compound in mate tea called caffeoylquinic acid (CQA) is what does the trick. As she increased the CQA concentration…the cancer cells died. And she thinks that’s because CQA reduces inflammation.

“There’s ample evidence to support drinking mate tea,” she says. “Especially if you have reason to be concerned about colon cancer.”

More Results Coming Soon?

Dr. de Mejia and her team are finishing another study on mate tea. It’s an animal study that looks at the effects of mate tea on colon cancer.

These early results certainly offer hope. And the next step will be testing it out in human trials.

In the meantime, you can buy mate tea bags in health food stores or online. Large supermarkets are now also starting to carry the tea. So you should have no problem picking it up.

As we’ve said, mate tea is all-natural and totally safe. So there’s no reason not to try it out.

It’s also very high in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. Those include vitamins B and C, manganese, potassium, zinc, quercetin, theobromine and theophylline. So those ingredients alone mean it’s loaded with health benefits.

We’ll follow these tea trials as they progress. And we’ll let you know when the newest results are available.

To your best health,

Michael Jelinek,
Managing Editor, NHD “Health Watch”