Man's kidney failure stemmed from *too much* iced tea

TeaVivre also cautions against overindulgence.
Overindulgence in Tea Can Bring Repercussions
http://www.teavivre.com/info/drink-more-will-be-repercussions/

Awwww sorry looseTman. It’s just that they pick the most sensational ways to “report.” But I will say that there is reason for all of us to be mindful of how much tea we drink. Too much of ANYTHING can cause problems for some people.

Iced tea link to kidney stones
Dr. John Milner, Urologist, Loyola University Chicago
WPVI-TV Philadelphia
August 8, 2012
http://6abc.com/archive/8765997/

Too much of anything can kill you. I know someone who had serious health problems from drinking too much water. He would bring a gallon of water with him to the gym and one time he finished it way too fast and ended up with some permanent damage (it was either liver or kidney damage but I don’t remember which one). With all of the people that drink a lot of tea, how many real issues are there? I’ve seen maybe 3-4 serious cases reported. I wouldn’t be concerned. Yes it’s good to keep things in moderation but these kinds of articles are just going to make people more paranoid. I get sick of seeing all these sensational negative health scares. It’s enough to make some completely paranoid about every little thing.

Of course the media is going after tea now. Tea consumption in the US is growing faster than any other beverage or snack. Soda consumption is plummeting, tea is skyrocketing…so, tea is going to grab the media’s attention, unfortunately.

In my opinion, the benefits of tea outweigh the risks. I’ll keep drinking my teas. :-)

All things in moderation, including moderation. There would be an epidemic of kidney damage in China if drinking tea moderately was a problem. LIkely sugar, poor quality tea and way too damn much of it are the culprits in this case – not to mention the other parts of his lifestyle and diet that we know nothing about. I’m 48, consume a fair amount of tea and my kidneys are dandy.

http://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6440

get plenty of water – dehydration in general leads to stones

eat calcium rich foods – oxalate binds to calcium and passes through the digestive system

the most studied tea types for oxalates are simply “green” and “black” – green tea is often associated with decreased risk. Raw pu’er is more akin to green tea than to black tea. Obviously different pu’er teas and oxalate content needs further study.

Tea time,
Garret

Super-interesting article, thanks for the link, looseTman. :)

I should note that this is a case-study, which is basically just a bunch of doctors saying “wow, that was a weird and unusual case, maybe we should publish it?”. The purpose of this kind of study is to make the people who read it go, “huh, interesting”, and also so that if anyone comes across a similar unusual case in the future and goes searching the literature, they will find out that such a thing has happened at least once before. Nobody looks at a single case study and tries to draw broad conclusions about the general population, because by definition a case study describes something that’s (probably) extremely rare.

So the conclusions drawn by the authors of the study are “if someone has unexplained kidney failure and lots of oxalate in their urine, go back and ask in more detail about their diet, because maybe they have oxalate nephropathy”. They’re not saying that drinking lots of tea is bad, or even that consuming lots of oxalate is bad, at least not for the general population, though clearly it was an issue for this one particular dude.

As other people have noted, if drinking lots of tea routinely caused oxalate nephropathy, there would be an epidemic of oxalate nephropathy in places like China, Japan, and India, and I feel like somebody would have noticed by now if that were actually the case. And even consuming a whole lot of oxalate probably isn’t all that harmful to most people. Looking at the list of high-olaxate foods, I’m imagining a health-conscious person who has a green smoothie for breakfast (spinach, mixed berries, nut butter, soy milk), a lentil/sweet potato curry for lunch, and a tofu/veggie stir-fry for supper. Even if they didn’t drink any tea or coffee at all that day, they’ve probably consumed a really substantial amount of oxalate! And yet we’re also not seeing an epidemic of oxalate nephropathy in the green-smoothie-drinking vegan/vegetarian population. :p

Other things that can cause random renal failure under relatively rare circumstances include a variety of medications (including common antibiotics and painkillers), infections, treating certain types of cancers with chemotherapy, and of course just having the right combination of genetics and bad luck that causes your immune system to decide to attack your kidneys. Yet we’re not going around telling the whole world to avoid all those things “just in case”. Life is inherently risky. We all just do the best we can. :)

And I think its good to post these kinds of things as we come across them. I like the discussion. Thank you for posting this looseTman!

I have a friend that works at a hospital and told me that there has been patients with kidney damage, from drinking to much green tea.

When inspecting further, it looks like they are weight loss green teas, some even have a laxative effect somehow. I recommend to stay away from such teas.