am i drinking too much tea?
so i’m fairly sure most of you will think i’m nuts.. but i drink about 5-6 liters of tea per day. its just regular lipton tea bags. the box of 24 bags. i fill up a small pot of water, bring to a boil, dip the bags in, cover and let stand for about 20 minutes, then put in a pitcher with some sugar and drink away.
lately ive been reading about tea and evidently people think drinking 3 cups per day is alot… and i do know the sugar is bad for me, but im slowly working on getting rid of that and switching to plain tea.
im an 18 year old male, only about 125-130 pounds. 5’10ish, if these details even matter.
i used to only drink this much water in a day, but i lately replaced the water with tea, (lately defined as a couple of months ago)
your thoughts?
EDIT: i use 2 teabags per pitcher of tea/tea making session if you will.
Ignoring the sugar as it is goes without saying that it isn’t healthy, I’d say that 5-6 litres is too much of any liquid to be drinking in a day. Tea has a mild diuretic effect but you’ll still be taking on a lot of water and your body will struggle to expel it fast enough. Over hydration can lead to serious medical problems as the sodium levels in your body drop. Your body doesn’t need anymore than about 2.6L of water a day and that includes the water that you get from foods and foods contain a lot more water than you’d expect.
Tea also contains caffeine so you need to be careful as too much caffeine can have serious side effects too.
You may want to check this thread out: http://steepster.com/discuss/5061-woman-drinks-tea-made-from-100-tea-bags-a-day-gets-rare-bone-disease-dot-dot-dot-what
My first reaction is wow that is a lot of tea, I drink up to 2L on some days and find that can be a lot sometimes. My concern is not the 5-6L but would be the 24 tea bags you are using to make the tea.
I also agree with what alice said above. You may be healthy now, but your kidney and urinary tract systems will be working in overload and you may have problems in the future.
Pretty much what Alice said. The low salt condition is called hyponatremia, if you wanted to look it up. It basically causes cell swelling from the lack of an essential electrolyte (salt). Diuretics (of which tea is a mild version) work on your kidneys, forcing out more salt and water than usual through urine. So chances are you’re definitely doing a number on yourself and diluting the salt in your body. This has far ranging complications on a lot of internal organs, including the brain, so you may want to reevaluate.
I have about 6 – 10 cups a day plus bottled water and feel ok. One cup prob about 250-300ml ish
I think 6 cups a day is okay. Drinking too much tea, as with overindulgence of any kind, can bring negative consequences. Although tea is a very healthy drink with plenty of health benefits, if you drink too much daily, it can irritate the stomach and esophagus lining, especially if you drink hot tea, which can lead to ulcers, acid reflux, can increase the symptoms of GERD and IBS and can make you feel slightly intoxicated.
Unfortunately modern teas contain a lot of fluoride (just the nature of our pollution / mass farming techniques.) Over time this can cause health issues. It’s rare, and it takes a lot of excess to make it happen, but if you’re drinking that much tea a day the risk is higher.
Buy a toothpaste that does not have fluoride. If you love tea, you can eliminate some of your fluoride intake that way.
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