Hello, how are you all?

It’s been a little while since I wrote a blog post. Not quite a month, but close to it. Did you miss me, ha ha? Either way, here I am.

The main reason it’s taken so long is due to the festive season. Well, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Speaking of which, for those of you who celebrate it in whatever form, I hope you had a fun, happy and peaceful one.

The last post I wrote was quite intense about my diagnosis day, but it had to be written. This post is going to be a little more chilled out, and probably a little shorter. Still, grab a brew, put your feet up, and have a read. My brew of choice right now, while writing this, is green tea. Not bag, but leaf in a teapot, the best way.

I should add I didn’t take the photo. That’s courtesy of Maria Tyutina at Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-pouring-liquid-into-brown-ceramic-cup-814264/

Before I get onto green tea, which is the main emphasis of this post, I would like to say today is a good day. I’m alive which is a good start. I’m blessed with the loves of my life Danielle and Kael. It’s 27c and we’ve had sun and rain today. Both can be good. I feel positive. The festive season was good to me. We had Christmas day with Danielle’s family which was good fun. I got to FaceTime my whole family in England and talk to them all. I’ve had family time, rest time, game time, friend time, walking time, football time, fun time and just looking out the window at trees time. Yes, there’s been some not such good time and I’ve had feeling down time, but I’m trying not to focus on that.

I’d like to focus on the good times in my memory bank because it helps when dealing with this cancer business. So, today is a good day. Oh, and speaking of good and football time. My team Leeds United got a great draw away to Newcastle, who are third and flying in the Premier League. Most of you won’t care or understand, but for those who do you’ll know it will have put a smile on my face. Nice to get a smash and grab away to the Geordies.

Now on to tea time. In particular, green tea time. Why green tea? Because it’s good for cancer. Actually, let me rephrase that. It’s good for me and bad for cancer. Cancer doesn’t like green tea. In fact green tea actively targets cancer.

This was a whole new discovery for me and it only came about through research I did after getting my diagnosis. You’d be amazed what I’ve researched since getting this diagnosis and what I’ve found out. I try to make sure everything is evidenced based so that I know it will work, or at the very least help my situation.

I will get more into the treatments I’m doing another time because I just want to stick to green tea today and it’s benefits. And it’s something everyone can drink. You don’t have to have cancer to drink and benefit from green tea.

I would like to say too that what works for me in regards to my cancer may, or may not, work for others. You really need to do your own research and get the right medical help in whichever form that works for you. As well as doing my own research I am also working with medically trained specialists. You do need the professionals to help with this too. The fact is there is no one single cure for cancer, I believe. It is a multi-step process. You have to attack it from different angles.

But I’m getting off track. Let’s save that discussion for another day as it can be a touchy subject for some. And, like I said at the start, I’d like this post to be a little more chilled out. So, back to green tea which is just a small part of my arsenal against cancer but an easy one to implement.

Green tea contains a substance known as polyphenol Epigallocatechin-gallate or EGCG for short. Through the research done it appears to be a very powerful anti-cancer agent for treatment and prevention.

EGCG is an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and a free-radical scavenger. Importantly it can deal with cancer stem cells which are at the heart of cancers. These cells are different to regular cancer cells because they can promote cancer re-growth, cancer cell invasion, metastases, inflammation and progression. To my knowledge, and understanding, chemotherapy can’t kill cancer stem cells. But I don’t want to get into that now. But anything and everything that can deal with cancer stem cells is important and green tea is one of them. By no means the only one but an easy one to take.

There is a lot of research on this and I could list a lot of it, as well as writing about it, but then this post would get into being a little like a university thesis and most of you would get bored. I might too. But I will mention one piece of information because I found it very relevant.

I have mantle cell lymphoma which is a blood cancer and inhabits the lymph nodes, so anything that pops up about that I check out.

The Tohoku School of Medicine, in Sendai, Japan did research a few years ago that I found very interesting. They did a study following 42,000 people over nine years in regards to blood cancers and cancer in the lymph nodes. The research showed that by drinking five cups of green tea a day, blood cancer was reduced by 40% and cancer in the lymph nodes by 50%. How good is that?

If you would like more information check out this page: https://www.canceractive.com/article/green-tea-chronic-illness-and-cancer

It’s a good place to start, not too complicated, easy to read and can be a springboard to much more material. It’s all evidence based and that I like.

Have a read and get green tea into you. I’m not sure how good the quality of the green tea has to be in order to get the most out of the EGCG component. That might have to be my next research. However, I’m not taking any chances so I’m not drinking the crappy supermarket tea bag blends. I’m drinking, for the most part, loose leaf organic green tea. If you live in Australia a great place to get it from is Valley Green Tea: https://www.valleygreentea.com.au Although if you shop around there are plenty of other sources.

I make it in a tea pot with water that has gone off the boil, closer to 80c than boiling point. Let it brew for four to five mins and drink to your hearts content. You can also reuse the leaves a couple of times if you want.

That’s it for me today. Time to put the kettle on, top up the tea pot and have a brew.

Enjoy life, drink green tea and have a laugh.

Cheers, Jon