How much is too much?
Overdosing on Tea
4.8/5 - (25 votes)
Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
Now, to significantly extend our lifespan, the latest research suggests one would have to drink seven cups of tea a day, which raises the question: how much is too much?
Sometimes you can get too much of a good thing—even water. Last year, for example, a jury awarded $16 million to a family whose mom died of water intoxication trying to win her family a Nintendo. Some radio jocks came up with the idea for a “Hold your Wee for a Wii” contest. Whoever could drink the most water wins. Jennifer came in second—before she keeled over dead.
So you can overdo anything. How much tea too much? Is the safe upper limit around 5 cups a day, 10 cups, 15, 20? Or, can one safely drink 25 cups of tea a day?
The limiting factor is probably the fluoride levels in tea. There was a case recently reported of a woman developing fluoride toxicity from tea. How much did she drink? One to two gallons of double strength tea every day of her adult life. That’s the equivalent of about 30 to 60 cups of regular tea a day. That’s definitely too much.
Based on a new analysis of fluoride levels in five brands of bottled tea, I would recommend people not drink more than ten cups of tea a day.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Kobe J. Med. Sci., Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. E62-E72, 2008 . Effect of Ground Green Tea Drinking for 2 Weeks on the Susceptibility of Plasma and LDL to the Oxidation ex vivo in Healthy Volunteers. Syuzou Gomikawa, Yuichi Ishikawa, Wakako Hayase, Yuko Haratake, Namiko Hirano, Hiromi Matuura, Akiyo Mizowaki, Akiko Murakami, Mao Yamamoto.
- Ann Epidemiol. 2009 Oct;19(10):732-9. Epub 2009 Jul 22. Green tea consumption and mortality among Japanese elderly people: the prospective Shizuoka elderly cohort. Suzuki E, Yorifuji T, Takao S, Komatsu H, Sugiyama M, Ohta T, Ishikawa-Takata K, Doi H.
- Jury Says Radio Station Must Pay $16.6M in Woman’s Water Intoxication Death. Posted Oct 30, 2009 1:12 PM CDT. Martha Neil.
Below is an approximation of this video’s audio content. To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video.
Now, to significantly extend our lifespan, the latest research suggests one would have to drink seven cups of tea a day, which raises the question: how much is too much?
Sometimes you can get too much of a good thing—even water. Last year, for example, a jury awarded $16 million to a family whose mom died of water intoxication trying to win her family a Nintendo. Some radio jocks came up with the idea for a “Hold your Wee for a Wii” contest. Whoever could drink the most water wins. Jennifer came in second—before she keeled over dead.
So you can overdo anything. How much tea too much? Is the safe upper limit around 5 cups a day, 10 cups, 15, 20? Or, can one safely drink 25 cups of tea a day?
The limiting factor is probably the fluoride levels in tea. There was a case recently reported of a woman developing fluoride toxicity from tea. How much did she drink? One to two gallons of double strength tea every day of her adult life. That’s the equivalent of about 30 to 60 cups of regular tea a day. That’s definitely too much.
Based on a new analysis of fluoride levels in five brands of bottled tea, I would recommend people not drink more than ten cups of tea a day.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- Kobe J. Med. Sci., Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. E62-E72, 2008 . Effect of Ground Green Tea Drinking for 2 Weeks on the Susceptibility of Plasma and LDL to the Oxidation ex vivo in Healthy Volunteers. Syuzou Gomikawa, Yuichi Ishikawa, Wakako Hayase, Yuko Haratake, Namiko Hirano, Hiromi Matuura, Akiyo Mizowaki, Akiko Murakami, Mao Yamamoto.
- Ann Epidemiol. 2009 Oct;19(10):732-9. Epub 2009 Jul 22. Green tea consumption and mortality among Japanese elderly people: the prospective Shizuoka elderly cohort. Suzuki E, Yorifuji T, Takao S, Komatsu H, Sugiyama M, Ohta T, Ishikawa-Takata K, Doi H.
- Jury Says Radio Station Must Pay $16.6M in Woman’s Water Intoxication Death. Posted Oct 30, 2009 1:12 PM CDT. Martha Neil.
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Title
Overdosing on Tea
LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Content URLDoctor's Note
For more on fluoride, check out Plant-Based Diets: Dental Health.
And check out my other videos on tea.
Also see my associated blog posts: The Best Detox; Nutmeg Toxicity; and Is Caffeinated Tea Really Dehydrating?
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