The chemopreventive effects of green tea and its polyphenols are well documented in the literature. Epidemiological studies have suggested that green tea consumption might be effective in the prevention of certain human cancers. About 80% of the tea is consumed as black tea. Limited studies have been carried out to assess the usefulness of black tea as anti_carcinogen. The present set of investigations were initiated to study the anti_tumorigenic potential of aqueous black tea extract (ATE) in Swiss albino mice in %in vivo% animal bioassay, using 7, 12 dimethyl_benzanthracene (DMBA) as carcinogen. In the experimental group, 2% ATE was given orally as sole source of drinking water, while the control were allowed to drink normal water, %ad lib.% The results revealed that drinking of 2% ATE could effectively inhibit the onset of tumorigenesis, cumulative number of tumors and average number of tumors per mouse. In ATE drinking group 44% animals remained tumor free till the termination of experiment, i. e. 26 weeks. In the second set of experiment the preventive efficacy of 2% ATE of different cultivars of black tea, viz orthodox, CTC and dust were tested in Ehrlich Ascites (EA) tumor bearing mice. The preventive effects of ATE were observed in terms of increased life span (ILS). All the cultivars of tea showed more than 25% increase in life span of the animals. Cytotoxic effect of various doses of all three cultivars of black tea was also observed %in vitro %on EA cells.
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