Green Tea / Turmeric - Does it reduce ALC?

[joebag55]

I was diagnosed 5/2016 with CLL. Currently in Watch and Wait.

I am looking for a recommendation on the amount of Green Tea and Turmeric people are using per day and if this has lead to a decrease in Absolute Lymphocyte Count.

Thanks,

Joe

[MsLockYourPosts Passed Volunteer]

None here. I haven't seen enough evidence of a positive effect to add them to my routine.

[AussieNeil Partner Administrator]

Anything we consider doing to reduce the impact on our quality of life by CLL should be done on the basis of the likely reward outweighing the likely risk, so well done asking the question. There's good evidence that EGCG in green tea was effective in reducing the ALC in 31% of patients on a small Mayo Clinic Phase 2 clinical trial of a special preparation by Mitsui called Polyphenon-E: 'Clinical activity was observed with 13(31%) patients experiencing a sustained ≥20% reduction in ALC and 20 of 29(69%) patients with palpable adenopathy experiencing at least a 50% reduction in the sum of the products of all nodal areas.': ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

Unfortunately I'd suggest that asking this question of our community members will not provide you with much in the way of helpful information for the following reasons:

1) ALC with CLL goes up and down naturally; it's hard to know whether anything you are doing is causing a change unless you have a sufficiently well controlled experiment - i.e. a clinical trial

2) It has been my observation from comments on CLL forums that the vast majority of those with CLL wishing to try green tea do not take a high enough dose for any clinical effect. Patients in the trial mentioned above were taking 4 grams a day of Polyphenon-E. You can't get anywhere near that dose by drinking green tea unless you are prepared to drink 20 or more cups of tea a day (I don't know the exact number of cups, but it's of that order); you need to take capsules. Most green tea capsule supplements are also fairly low in EGCG - you need to do your homework to find a suitable supplier and then you have the worry of whether the manufacturer is being honest and whether there is contamination by pesticides, bacteria, fungi or heavy metals.

Evidence for Turmeric's effectiveness has not been determined by clinical trial - just test-tube (in-vitro) testing.

If you decide to take both Green tea and Turmeric supplements, the experimental evidence indicates that they will be most effective taken alternatively, rather than together. When gemit2000 asked me recently about the minimum time needed between the supplements, I couldn't find the information on the time the blood plasma concentration remains high, but here it is:

'The peak plasma concentrations of EGCG are reached in 1–2 h in healthy subjects with one oral dose in the morning after an overnight fasting period. These levels diminish gradually to undetectable levels in 24 h. The elimination half-life of EGCG takes place at 3.4 ± 0.3 h'

From: Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) for Clinical Trials: More Pitfalls than Promises?

Derliz Mereles and Werner Hunstein

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

Obtaining a high blood plasma concentration of turmeric is problematic. It only lasts a short while in the blood and you need to take it with black pepper (piperine) or have it with soy milk or a fatty meal to get a reasonable plasma concentration. Even then, there's doubt that it will be enough for biological action against CLL cells:

turmericforhealth.com/gener...

Other posts on this topic:

healthunlocked.com/search/g...

Personally I have been taking about 2grams daily of EGCG for over 7 years, but my CLL was fairly advanced at diagnosis (stage IV). EGCG hasn't stopped my ALC from climbing (which is low anyway as I started off with SLL), but my enlarged spleen and lymph nodes haven't changed noticeably in that time according to my CLL specialist. I started taking turmeric on the weekends a few years ago and didn't notice any difference in my ALC, but have stayed on it because I did notice that the discomfort from rheumatism in my hands disappeared if I kept taking it weekly.

Neil

[Raoul]

@joebagbag55

Hey Joe

I am currently taking something from the vitamin shop that is called triple green tea extract

no ones knows the exact amount to take. Make sure that what you are takes is de caffenated

[Cllcanada Top Poster CURE Hero]

Sorry, but things have moved on...

PolyphenonE is now used to treat genital warts and Dr. Kay, from the Mayo study...issues a caution about OTC preparations of EGCG... in this video.

patientpower.info/video/ask...

Veregen T

livestrong.com/article/1092...