Green tea extract (EGCg) can cause liver damage in those with particular genetic mutations.
Green tea supplements ruined my liver
41–50 of 167 posts
Re: Green tea supplements ruined my liver
#42To save everyone from the clickbait title: green tea capsules are the food supplement.
This is more that a "clikbait" title. The big picture is that the food supplement is unregulated in the USA, due, in most part, to intense lobbying of the food supplement industry. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/06/supplemen... In Europe, the situation seems a bit less bleak: https://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/labelling_nutrition/supplem...
They should be mainly regulated to ensure purity standards, prevent mislabeling, and to allow quick action when a health danger is discovered (and not a just a 1-in-1,000,000 case). The supplement industry should be forced to provide independent lab testing results for each batch they sell and to list all possible known interactions and dangers on the product pages and together with the physical products, and to provide the government with total sales numbers. I'm strongly against banning supplements by default.
General problems are the lack of research, especially on humans, low-powered and short-term studies only, and not publishing null results. It would be nice if all supplements had safety studies on humans but with a median cost of a phase 3 trial at $19 million, it would be equivalent to a total ban, unless the government pays. Maybe some kind of an alternative system could be created where users report by themselves and all companies have to encourage users to use this system...
Re: Green tea supplements ruined my liver
#43I'd assume pesticides play a big role in that case. It is a known problem and most countries exporting green tea leaves aren't know for effective regulation of food safety.
Re: Green tea supplements ruined my liver
#44The emphasis is on supplements, not green tea itself.
Lots of chinese are habitually drinking very strong green tea all day long from one these fancy termos-like transparent cups (an ages old cultural phenomena, I suppose) and there is no side-effects despite ordinary caffeine overdose.
Same is true with coffee. Societies with a coffee-culture, like Turkey or Italy have huge numbers of addicts but uncorrelated number of liver injuries.
Re: Green tea supplements ruined my liver
#45If I recall correctly, the tea plant is great at taking up certain heavy metals from the soil.
Quick search turned up something https://www.scribd.com/doc/24451227/Analysis-of-Heavy-Metals...
Lead, Mercury, arsenic, aluminium, copper.
Could be a concern?
Re: Green tea supplements ruined my liver
#46Why don't people just drink a cup of green tea!?
Re: Green tea supplements ruined my liver
#47Thank you for posting this article. It gave me pause for thought. I have been taking a green tea supplement occasionally. I saw it in a vitamin store, and bought it because of the supposed benefits of antioxidants. I figured - I have a stressful job, I live in a polluted city and do drink alcohol - I probably need the antioxidants. Plus, something that's made out of green tea sounds safe, not likely do any harm, righ…
NutrEval, a comprehensive hormone panel, a thyroid panel, and genetic testing. Keeping everything in the preferred range (for a 25 year old; can get more involved as time goes by) may be a better approach.
Iodine protocol. MSM lotion.
Re: Green tea supplements ruined my liver
#48Did anyone else see a dosage that he was actually taking for these green tea supplements? It seems to be missing from the article but is arguably the most important point. Anything is poisonous to the body in high enough doses. Does the producer of these capsules (apparently Vitacost) specify a maximum dosage? If so, was Jim exceeding this recommendation? Or well under it? Come on BBC.
There is no 'dosage', because—as mentioned in the article—these capsules are classified as food, not medicine: > What is it about green tea supplements that might cause harm at certain doses to some people? Scientists do not know for certain. Because green tea has been drunk for thousands of years, supplements consisting of its concentrated form are regulated in the US and Europe as foods, not medicines. That means t…
There is no official "recommended" dosage and often the "maximum" dosage is just a guess too. Not the same as not being able to determine the dosage in each capsule or pill.
Re: Green tea supplements ruined my liver
#49Did anyone else see a dosage that he was actually taking for these green tea supplements? It seems to be missing from the article but is arguably the most important point. Anything is poisonous to the body in high enough doses. Does the producer of these capsules (apparently Vitacost) specify a maximum dosage? If so, was Jim exceeding this recommendation? Or well under it? Come on BBC.
I'd be surprised if it was anything other than the "dosage" stated on the box. Do people actually take more than the recommended dosage in the belief that the supplement will be even better for them? I guess it's possible but surely that would be newsworthy in and of itself if that were the case in this instance.
Re: Green tea supplements ruined my liver
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
From Vitacost's website: Vitacost Green Tea Extract Green Tea Extract (leaf) standardized to 98% polyphenols (490 mg), 80% catechins (400 mg), 50% epigallocatechin-3P-gallate (EGCG)(250 mg) Amount Per Serving: 500mg https://www.vitacost.com/vitacost-green-tea-extract-standard...
Study on the effects of EGCG on diabetic mice: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep40617 "In conclusion, despite of its well known favorable effects, EGCG could paradoxically exhibit nephro-toxic effect in the presence of diabetes"
Seems especially dangerous in the case of a "weight loss" supplement where the people taking it might have some early form of weight-related diabetes and not even know it yet.