In Taiwan, a study was published recently which showed that drinking green tea is effective in preventing cancer caused by smoking. A student from the Graduate School of Public Hygiene at

Taiwan's Chung Shan Medical University, Lin Yi-hsin, said many studies have shown that drinking green tea is effective in preventing cancer, but her study focused on green tea's effectiveness

in preventing cancer caused by smoking.

For her study, Lin recruited 500 people, including 170 lung cancer patients.

Talking to a news conference at her university in Taichung, central Taiwan she said, "I analyzed their lifestyles and habits of smoking, eating and drinking tea."

"This study has shown that drinking green tea can check the growth of insulin-like growth factor, which is a hormone that

stimulates the growth of cancerous cells." said Professor Wong Jui-hung, who supervised Lin's research.

Lung cancer is common in Taiwan but rare in Japan because the Japanese like to drink green tea," he said at the news conference.