Lung cancer has been heavily attributed to habitual smoking and exposure to cigarette smoke, but a recent study suggests that a cup of green tea a day could significantly lower the risks of lung cancer occurring.

The Taiwanese study, presented at the AACR-IASLC Joint Conference on Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer (whew!), shows that smokers who drank a cup of green tea daily had an approximately 92.1% lower chance of contracting lung cancer than those who did not drink any at all. Among all subjects in the study (smokers and non-smokers), those who drank a daily cup of green tea had an approximately 80.6% lower chance of lung cancer on average.

The study employed 170 lung cancer patients along with 340 healthy patients as controls, with detailed pegging of the subjects’ demographics and smoking habits. The study also ventured into genetics, which they used to track some growth factors that have been associated with cancer. The study also showed that the effectivity of green tea in preventing lung cancer in the first place is affected by the presence (or lack) of certain growth factor varieties.

“Our study may represent a clue that in the case of lung cancer, smoking-induced carcinogenesis could be modulated by green tea consumption and the growth factor environment,” shares I-Hsin Lin, M.S., a student at Chung Shan Medical University in Taiwan.

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