Epicatechins have apparent activity against human cancer: they reportedly may promote apoptosis (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) , arrest metastasis by inhibiting metalloproteinases (7, 8) , impair angiogenesis (9, 10) and reverse multidrug resistance (11, 12) . Although all epicatechins except EC can potentially suppress cell proliferation (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) , EGCG appears the most promising and is therefore under clinical investigation in chemoprevention trials (19) . However, given the wide range in physiologic potency of the different catechins, an exclusive focus on EGCG is probably short-sighted. EGCG is reportedly more effective than EGC in decreasing the intestinal absorption of cholesterol (20) and it is the most potent catechin inhibitor of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (21) , but ECG has the strongest collagenase inhibitory effect (22) and the highest antioxidant potential (23) . By contrast, only EGC is a potent mediator of oxidative modification and an inhibitor of xanthine oxidase during hepatic catabolism of purines (24) .