How much green tea is too much

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Rinny_D
Rinny_D Posts: 80 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I was drinking a good 2-4 cups of green tea a day (Lipton Green Tea- Vanilla) with 1 packet of splenda per cup. After a few days I lost my appetite, and I continued drinking it. It was great.
I non-purposely stopped drinking it while I was on my hospital placement as I just didn't have the time and have just started drinking it again this week.

I have already had 4 cups today and it's just before midday. I am at home, studying, and I need something to sip/snack on. Water just isn't doing it for me (although I do have a bottle of water next to me that I sip throughout the day and usually top up at least once at some point during the day- more if I am going to go for a run- especially on a warm day).

Anyway- am I going to do much/any damage drinking this much Green tea? If so what and how would I minimise it? I just don't want to snack- and if I have my cups of tea this will stop the continuos snacking- while I am studying!

Thanks in advance.

Replies

  • Beezil
    Beezil Posts: 1,677 Member
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    I dunno about with the splenda in it, but I drink 2-4 cups of green tea a day as well. Without sugar it has no calories, and lipton's green tea with orange, passionfruit and jasmine has 10mg of potassium for each bag. :) I don't see how it would hurt anything, but unless you have to I wouldn't use artificial sweeteners.
  • XFitMojoMom
    XFitMojoMom Posts: 3,255 Member
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    I switched my morning espresso shot for green tea (actually Davids Tea mix of dragon silk jasmine green tea and peppermint amour)... I drink it all day long since I also struggle getting enough water in.

    other than some interruption in *falling asleep* :wink: , no bad side effects other than lower BP and glucose levels (milk is evil).

    a good article about the effects of EgCg http://graemethomasonline.com/going-green-for-rapid-weight-loss/
  • mscindyb
    mscindyb Posts: 6
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    Sounds like you are at a healthy level ... and you are getting whole host of excellent health benefits! Lucky you can drink it on an empty stomach, it makes me feel nauseous!

    WebMD QUOTE: Too much green tea — more than five cups per day, for example — is POSSIBLY UNSAFE. It can cause side effects because of the caffeine. These side effects can range from mild to serious and include headache, nervousness, sleep problems, vomiting, diarrhea, irritability, irregular heartbeat, tremor, heartburn, dizziness, ringing in the ears, convulsions, and confusion. Green tea seems to reduce the absorption of iron from food. Drinking very high doses of green tea can actually be fatal. The fatal dose of caffeine in green tea is estimated to be 10-14 grams (150-200 mg per kilogram). Serious toxicity can occur at lower doses.
  • jessmars
    jessmars Posts: 131
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    I read something like 3-6 cups is ok, but Ive learned a few things in my nursing courses about green tea:

    1. its can cause upset stomach because it can over stimulate the gastric acids in your stomach

    2. its not good for you if you are anemic (iron problem) because it stops the iron from being absorbed

    3. Stops Vitamin B absorption- causing a mineral deficit.

    4. Too much causes caffeine intolerance plus its only healthy to have something like 300 mg of caffeine a day

    5. if you are takin any medication double check that it doesn't have an interaction w/the tea......i know there is a list of like 10-15 medications its not good with (like birth control, cold medicines, heart medicine)

    but in moderation its really really good for you....you can always water down the tea or reuse the tea bags so the amount of green tea/caffeine isn't that high

    I drink 2 cups a day
  • Rinny_D
    Rinny_D Posts: 80 Member
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    I dunno about with the splenda in it, but I drink 2-4 cups of green tea a day as well. Without sugar it has no calories, and lipton's green tea with orange, passionfruit and jasmine has 10mg of potassium for each bag. :) I don't see how it would hurt anything, but unless you have to I wouldn't use artificial sweeteners.

    I like the taste of having a little bit of something to sweeten it up but don't like to use sugar if I can avoid it due to the calories. Splenda is the only sweetener I like.. Ingredients include Dextrose, Maltodextrin and Sucralose.

    Maybe I will try the other lipton flavours then... I just like to have the fat metabolisers and appetite suppression that comes with the green tea- it does seem to make me feel very anti-food after a couple of weeks of drinking it though and struggle to eat anywhere near enough, perhaps I could benefit from alternating between green and other flavours of Tea?
  • DrG3n3
    DrG3n3 Posts: 467 Member
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    I've been drinking 2 cups a day since Sunday, and I use Splenda (which I am entirely for, mind you, so its up to whoever drinks it rather you want to use it or not) in both of them. I've replaced an afternoon snack with it because I get to grab something extra after my workout while I am cooking dinner and I've kept from grabbing bad stuff. I don't see a problem with keeping it in moderation. My boss drinks like 3 or 4 cups a day while he is at work, with either german rock sugar (thats what it looks like) or some cane sugar in it, and he hasn't seemed worse for wear.
  • Rinny_D
    Rinny_D Posts: 80 Member
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    That sounds a little scary. But I get half of those problems without green tea :P Staring at a computer screen does it to me.

    I guess if I get worse I will have to reduce and cut down. Is it strange that the packaging says nothing about having caffeine in it? In contrast though, my other packet of "Tetley Mint Ginger" tea says 'naturally caffeine free'. hmm
  • Rinny_D
    Rinny_D Posts: 80 Member
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    "...In a study reported on in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, it was found that green tea extract resulted in a significant increase in energy expenditure (a measure of metabolism), plus also had a significant effect on fat oxidation. While some of the effects were originally theorized to be due to the caffeine content of green tea, the researchers discovered that the tea actually has properties that go beyond those that would be explained by the caffeine. The same amount of caffeine as was in the green tea, administered alone, failed to change energy expenditure in other studies. This led reseachers to believe that there is some interaction going on with the active ingredients of green tea that promotes increased metabolism and fat oxidation..."

    http://thyroid.about.com/cs/dietweightloss/a/greentea.htm
  • DrG3n3
    DrG3n3 Posts: 467 Member
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    I believe a cup of green tea has around 20-40 mg of caffeine, so if you are ingesting 6 of them that does seem like a lot of caffeine to me. I don't know, and wouldn't be the authority on it, but if you do this often you might have built up an immunity to those affects. Like people that drink a lot of coffee.
  • Rinny_D
    Rinny_D Posts: 80 Member
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    I believe a cup of green tea has around 20-40 mg of caffeine, so if you are ingesting 6 of them that does seem like a lot of caffeine to me. I don't know, and wouldn't be the authority on it, but if you do this often you might have built up an immunity to those affects. Like people that drink a lot of coffee.

    I wonder why they don't have to put caffeine on the nutritional information.
  • Skyrocket123
    Skyrocket123 Posts: 149 Member
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    You should drink it right after a meal, it cuts right through the fat in the food.
    I have drunk green tea in copious amounts for years and I haven't had any convulsions or any bad side effects other than it can stain your teeth a bit.
    Drink it how you like.
  • sweetxsour35
    sweetxsour35 Posts: 177
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    Like others said, green tea can have a lot of caffeine in it. Maybe you could try drinking a different tea with less caffeine in it.
  • Jonna13
    Jonna13 Posts: 288 Member
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    Mmmmmmmmmm green tea :)
  • asyouseefit
    asyouseefit Posts: 1,265 Member
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    Try herbal tea instead. There are many different kinds and some are super yummy!

    (one of the downsides of tea I hardly see mentioned here is that it stains teeth. Might think about that as well!)
  • DrG3n3
    DrG3n3 Posts: 467 Member
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    They probably don't tell you about the caffeine because of the amount in a cup. I know for calories etc if its less than 5 they can say there aren't any in the product, or as far as I have read.

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