Tea damaging dna?
http://healthland.time.com/2013/03/29/could-some-of-our-favorite-flavorings-be-damaging-our-dna/?hpt=hp_t5
Food for thought.
Honestly I don’t think this is worth paying much attention to…
-There’s tons of lab research out there that either supports or is neutral to tea reducing the risks of cancer, and there’s also plenty of studies showing lower cancer levels in tea drinkers.
-This experiment added tea/coffee directly to cell cultures… Cultures are much more vulnerable to all kinds of effects compared to cells in a healthy body system, and tea goes through our digestive track before its chemicals are sent to the cells.
-P53 is associated with gene damage, but its presence doesn’t necessarily mean that that the tea/coffee were damaging the DNA. This is sort of like saying that having the flu increases antibody activity, so if you’re experiencing increased antibody activity that it could ONLY have been caused by the flu. (Rumpus said it better)
-This study has only been done by one lab. Personally I don’t pay attention to any controversial research until the experiment/results have been replicated by other labs/scientists.
I think I’ll go back to drinking my tea now haha
Thank you. This article set off my scientific intuition, but I wasn’t sure whether it was because of the experimental design or shoddy journalism (both quite common, in my experience).
Yeah, its kind of scary that the media is so quick to grab up articles like this without much questioning.
The results and design of the experiment can easily be manipulated to make them say whatever you want them to say…
Though I’m not sure I’d stop drinking tea even if it was bad for me :P
And nothing indicated how much they were really using. Wow you diluted it to such an extent, but how much is still being used? I hate stuff like this, it’s just a bunch of scare tactics when it’s probably a ridiculous amount few people consume daily.
Well said, tperez. Also, who paid for this research? Could it be someone who might have an interest in manipulating us away from these products?
No, this doesn’t scare me. Not even slightly. In fact, a headline like that is more likely to trigger an ‘ugh, rubbish’ reaction from me.
Hm, something that came to mind for me and maybe this was addressed in the study but just not mentioned in the article: did they rule out that the chemicals in the tested items may have been triggering the p53 directly rather than indirectly by damaging the DNA?
I’m frankly too lazy to google for an answer and not all that worried about it.
Login or sign up to leave a comment.