Preclinical study of genuine essiac formula: A cancer treatment eight-herbs' tea minimizes DNA insult of X-rays

Context: Essiac tea is been used widely in the homeopathy market for cancer treatment. Aims: We hypothesized its use for DNA-damaged mitigation under very low ionizing radiation (IR) on BALB/c mice (10–40 mSv). Settings and Design: The radioprotection of Essiac tea formulae was evidenced by comet assay (CA) and micronucleus (MN) acridine orange staining. We also reported complete blood count, animal weight, and fasting glucose levels to control for tea toxicity. Materials and Methods: Fifty BALB/c male mice of 6-7 week old and pathogen free mice were randomly divided in to control group, control irradiated mice, irradiated and tea or ascorbic acid treated mice, tea treated mice and ascorbic acid treated mice. Genuine Essiac tea treatment was given ad libitum for 7 weeks and ascorbic for no >13 days. The animals were exposed to three different X-ray doses (10 mSv, 20 mSv, and 40 mSv). Statistical Analysis Used: An independent one-tailed t-test or Dunnett's test was used to compare animal weight, fasting glucose levels, white blood count, comet percentage, and MN percentage, between doses, treatment, and controls, after a Welch's ANOVA and Mann–Whitney U-test using Excel worksheets from Biostathandbook.com website. Results: The tea formula resulted in a significant reduction of DNA damaged evidenced by CA (P < 0.01 for dose 3–40 mSv). By MN staining, the peak of significant induction of MNs was by the lower doses, D1 and D2, with a P value = 0.001 and P value = 0.014, respectively; however those irradiated animals when were treated with tea showed reduction of MNs and no significant difference from controls. Conclusions: Using an optimized murine model, we demonstrated that Genuine Essiac tea is not toxic and that it acts as a radioprotector against very low doses of IR.