 There's a new treatment for genital warts. Has a fancy brand name for marketing purposes, but it's basically just green tea in ointment form. It was tried on 1,000 men and women, and complete clearance of all external genital warts was obtained in more than half the patients, with a 10% or 15% green tea phytonutrient ointment. Such astounding results that it's been officially incorporated into the latest STD treatment guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control. I bring this up as an illustration of the potential power of plants, like the tea plant, even when just smeared on our skin. As a physician, I care less about the strains of HPV that cause warts and more about the HPV that causes death. We know green tea consumption is associated with lower risk of certain gynecological cancers, ovarian and ethylial, but what about the HPV-related cervical, vaginal, and vulva cancers? Well, a recent in vitro study looking at two different lines of cervical cancer cells found that green tea phytonutrients appear to open cans of cancer whoop-ass, but in terms of diet, what's important is that the phytonutrients in green tea appear protective not only when applied, but topically to cervical lesions, but orally as well, suggesting that high consumption of green tea could either reduce the incidence of cervical cancer or delay the progression of precancerous lesions to cervical cancer.