 More than 85% of breast cancers are sporadic and attributable to long-term exposure to environmental carcinogens such as those in the diet, through a multi-step disease process progressing from non-cancerous to pre-malignant and malignant stages. Now we know that the chemical carcinogen FIP is one of the most abundant heterocyclic amines found in high-temperature-cooked meats and is recognized as a breast carcinogen. However, the FIP's mechanism of action in breast cell carcinogenesis is not completely clear. How does it do it? Well, in this landmark new study, they demonstrated for the first time that cumulative exposures to FIP, the kind of concentrations one would expect just eating meat, effectively induced progressive carcinogenesis, cancer transformation of normal human breast cells from a non-cancerous stage to pre-malignant and malignant stages in a dose and exposure-dependent manner. From start to finish, they started out with normal human breast cells and were able to transmute them completely into cancer cells, just using that cooked meat carcinogen found predominantly in fried bacon, fish, and chicken. That's all it took, and jackal becomes hide. Now FIP was already established as a carcinogen. The reason they did this study was to develop a model of human breast cancer carcinogenesis, from beginning to end, so they could test various interventions to see if they could somehow stop this process of cancer formation. For example, three recent meta-analyses reviewing all the epidemiological or population-based evidence concerning green tea consumption and breast cancer risk to date concluded that green tea consumption may be protected. OK, let's put the plant to the test. Here's how normal human breast cells rate against six different measures of cancer potential. Add some green tea to them, and nothing much happens. Add repeated exposure to the cooked meat carcinogen FIP, though, and all the cancer indicators go up. OK, here's the test. What happens if you now add the meat carcinogen with green tea phytonutrients? The transformation of breast cancer is blunted across the board, almost bringing cancer markers back to normal. Using a variety of measures, green tea phytonutrients were capable of suppressing FIP-induced cellular cancer and tumor progression.