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Earl Grey tea intoxication [pdf]
- sesteel 12y agoThis is amazing. I drink about half a pitcher of tea a day. I picked up the habit as a replacement for soda about 15 years ago. I usually drop an Earl Grey tea bag in with about 4 regular black tea bags. I am going to have to try to drop the Earl Grey habit and see, but I do get strange muscle cramps in my legs and ribcage. I've been attributing them to injuries I obtained while playing sports when I was younger.
- silencio 12y agoI've been making "tea water" for a while now as a supplement to plain water, as I rarely drink any soda or juices. 1-2 teabags in a 2L pitcher goes in the fridge, cold brew for at least a couple hours. Same thing for fruit/herb infusions. It gives me a hint of the flavor of tea, and it is very diluted compared to regular iced/hot tea preparations. I don't have any qualms about drinking a lot of it. 1 teabag for black/stronger teas, 2 for the lighter greens/weirder teas (like Korean/Asian roasted barley or corn tea).
- sesteel 12y agoInteresting. I'll have to give that a try.
- dbcooper 12y agoTL;DR: Don't drink 4L of the stuff per day.
- ChuckMcM 12y agoThat is an inaccurate summary, the patient was fine on 4L of black tea per day, it was the Bergamont essence in Earl Grey that caused his issues. I also learned about a new thing, phototoxic chemicals.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- nardi 12y ago> That is an inaccurate summary Not inaccurate. Merely imprecise.
- dbbolton 12y agoExcessive black tea consumption can also cause fluorosis. It's quite difficult to say just how much tea one would have to drink to cause any symptoms though. Bottom line, moderation is usually a good idea.
- Kluny 12y agoWhat's fluorosis?
- jrockway 12y agoThe result of consuming too much fluoride. I believe it usually manifests as white marks on your teeth, but only as they grow in, so I'm not sure adults should care about fluorosis or not.
- dbbolton 12y agoUnfortunately fluorosis can be a bit more serious than just some marks on your teeth. In severe cases of skeletal fluorosis, patients can experience pain/damage to the bones and joints. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_fluorosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_fluorosis
- gcb4 12y agoat work i see people gulp more than 4 liter of, employer provided, water bottle with fake (sorry, "natural") fruit aroma..
- kazinator 12y agoOr if you must drink 4L, maybe don't drink exactly the same tea; try a variety of different teas.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- frozenport 12y agoNot clear how dense it is. If I brew the tea with0 4x density, it fits in a 1 liter.
- atomi 12y agoYeah. I love Earl Gray and sometimes will brew 64 ounces using 1 tea bag and a packet of stevia for my daily fluid intake. I hope 1 tea bag diluted should be okay.
- x0x0 12y agoA gallon. He was drinking a gallon of tea a day. I would hope any reasonably intelligent human being would not put a gallon daily of even a mild stimulant in his or her body for years on end and be surprised at bad things happening. It's like those idiots that get diabetes after drinking 4L of soda per day for years on end. Who could possibly have known that 1020 calories and 276g of sugar per 2L of soda -- or twice that if you drink 2x2L -- could be unhealthy?
- jrockway 12y agoBut it wasn't the "mild stimulant" that was causing problems; he was fine drinking a gallon a day of tea without oil of bergamot. You then go off on some rant about soda; the effects of eating an extra 1000 calories a day are well known. They do not apply to black tea.
- x0x0 12y agoAnd how would you know? Virtually nobody has studied the effects of long term high level black tea dosing, at last in part because (I believe) society has an assumption that most people aren't that stupid. A cup or five a day is understood because people do it. Assuming a cup is ~8 fluid oz, he drank nearly 17/day. ps -- since you didn't read the article, he wasn't fine drinking the black tea Since this type of tea had given him occasional gastric pain, he changed to Earl Grey (Twinings & Company, London, UK), which he thought would be less harmful to his stomach.
- ubernostrum 12y agoVirtually nobody has studied the effects of long term high level black tea dosing, at last in part because (I believe) society has an assumption that most people aren't that stupid. In the southern US, iced and often sweetened black tea is consumed in large quantities and has been for quite a long time, to the point that the state of Georgia once jokingly introduced a bill mandating the presence of sweet tea on restaurant drink menus.
- natecavanaugh 12y ago
- spyder 12y agoYes, even drinking too much water can be deadly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication The "Notable cases" section contains mostly: drug use, drinking contests by radio stations, kids who were forcefully fed lot of water (3.4l) as punishment :(, also 4 liter water in 2 hours, and 8 liter in one day can be deadly.
- Natsu 12y agoSomeone should warn Jean-Luc.
- fallinghawks 12y agoNah, he's a knowing abuser of the stuff.
- dunham 12y agoMore specifically, don't drink more than 1L of Earl Grey per day. Although they probably vary in bergamot content from brand to brand, so YMMV.
- gcb4 12y agotea. hot. Earl gray. four liter.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- udalov 12y agoNot sure why they conclude that "bergamot essence may induce muscle cramps" etc based on a single case. What if the man had an allergic response of some kind and 99.99% of the population would be fine drinking so much earl grey tea?
- dbbolton 12y agoBecause the proposed mechanism has nothing to do with histamine or immune response. Such a K+ channel blocker should hypothetically have the same effect in the vast majority of the general population.
- rbanffy 12y agoSo, if I really like Earl Grey, what would be the antidote to the K+ channel blocker?
- dbbolton 12y agoHypothetically if a person did experience myalgia as a direct result of drinking Earl Grey tea and their proposed mechanism is accurate, the treatment would probably involve K+ channel opener with a lower K_d (higher affinity) than the culprit bergapten, perhaps Diazoxide.
- robert_tweed 12y agoI don't think they are drawing those conclusions from this case. They appear to be pointing out that these are known reactions, based on the references. Really, they are just reporting the surprising fact that it is possible to overdose on bergamot by drinking a large, but not unreasonably so (at least by UK standards), quantity of tea. This of course is only one case report, so one should not assume that one needs to drink 4L of Earl Grey to induce these symptoms. I typically drink about 2L of tea per day, yet 2-3 cups of Earl Grey makes me feel nauseated. I've never had cramps or vision problems, but that's probably because I stop when I start feeling ill. This is good to know for future reference.
- Alex3917 12y agoMost essential oils are poisonous except in very limited quantities. The effects might be different, but this isn't specially surprising.
- NAFV_P 12y agoI enjoyed reading this article, with a nicely brewed cup of Earl Grey. The alternative Lady Grey tea [0] has lower concentrations of oil of bergamot. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Grey_(tea) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Grey_(tea)
- gcb4 12y agoi will have the 8L lady grey, please.
- raywritescode 12y agoI normally drink black coffee. After reading the article I now want some tea, Earl Grey, hot.
- gilgoomesh 12y agoI think it says something perverse about our desires but I too would like some Earl Grey tea.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dang 3y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20140912083558/http://www.docente.unicas.it/useruploads/000811/files/earl_grey_tea_intoxication.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20140912083558/http://www.docent...