Green tea, that is.

By combining the little leaves with the pain-relieving ingredient in Pfizer’s Celebrex, scientists say they were able to reduce the growth of prostate cancer in mice by 81 percent, more than either substance on its own. Their study appears in Clinical Cancer Research.

Green tea alone reduced tumor growth by 42 percent, and the Cox-2 inhibitor slowed it by 57 percent on its own. If the results translate to human studies, the combined treatment could prolong life in prostate cancer patients by years, the authors speculate.

This appears to be the first research combining Celebrex with a natural dietary supplement to fight cancer. And the scientists are excited about the prospects. “It would be a very significant difference, years of life,” Vaqar Adhami, a cancer researcher at the University of Wisconsin and one of the authors of the study, tells Bloomberg News. “Not only that, it’s slowing down the blood of the tumor itself, so quality of life for people would improve.”

Pfizer spokesman Jack Cox says the drugmaker isn’t currently studying Celebrex and prostate cancer. Still, Pfizer wouldn’t look the other way if the troubled painkiller could eradicate prostate cancer, now would it? And imagine the marketing opportunities: a box of tea bags with every prescription. What insurer wouldn’t cover that?

[tags]Clinical Cancer Research, Green Tea, Pfizer, Prostate Cancer[/tags]