Thiamine (B1) Deficiency and Tea Consumption

Hello, all, I have just seen an interesting turn of events in a patient who has in the last few months started to drink a goodly amount of tea for "health" reasons (self-prescribed). I have always been an advocate of the benefits of tea drinking; however, this fellow did go a little overboard and has been consuming 2/3 liters daily of pu-erh or oolong, primarily and a bit of Earl Grey. It seems his B1 levels have dropped considerably. After doing some of research and speaking with colleagues, we discovered that tea consumption in this amount can support B1 deficiency. This is important particularly for congestive heart disease patients and those whom consume alcohol (too much) since these folks tend to need more B1 and both conditions can also lead to dificiency. Just a note that if you do choose to drink copious amounts of this wonderful stuff, watch your B vitamins (eat your whole grains). These is meant to be a suggestion and not a substition for medical advice. Shen

Reply to
Shen
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you're sure there are no other reasons for his deficiency?

Reply to
Zarky Zork

"Shen" wrote in news:1169057446.772359.274170 @l53g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Not disrespecting your professional status, and not overlooking the fact that you posted this suggestion at all, nevertheless I would appreciate the URL's of some of that research, if any of it is on line. I have an intuitive doubt that the wonderful stuff can have any such effect -- but if statistically valid research on has been done which tends to point to this, I certainly want to know of it.

Meantime, consuming tea in amounts in excess of a l/d, I've been avoiding thiamin supplementation for other reasons -- but I suppose a little more kichari (mostly mung beans & brown rice) couldn't hurt, *especially* as it's one of my favorite foods...

Ozzy

Reply to
Ozzy

Reply to
Shen

Reply to
Shen

"Shen" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Thanks -- have a nice weekend then

Ozzy

Reply to
Ozzy

copious amounts of anything can cause problems. WHO and NIH in vitamin

I totally believe this because I drink a lot of tea, am allergic to wheat, have been on a nervous edge and find benefit from taking B supplements. But I have a different question.

When you say 2-3 liters a day, do you mean 4 grams of leaves in a 4 oz gaiwan that you brew 6-8 times is a liter, or do you mean 4 grams of leaves 8 times in a day? Concentration makes a difference I think.

Reply to
Danica

"Shen" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@l53g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

thiamin.htm ...

Thanks much, Shen, for taking the time. I thought you'd forgotten all about it -- but then again I've been otherwise occuppied myself for the last few days. :)

Considering what direction the thread took after you posted these references, and your saying that you took a pot of tea a day yourself -- by which we know that you are *not* one of the people referred to below

-- let me remind the group of a passage from Mark Twain's

*Autobiography*, which I think is extremely revelant still:

"It seems a pity that the world should throw away so many good things merely because they are unwholesome. I doubt if God has given us any refreshment which, taken in moderation, is unwholesome, except microbes. Yet there are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it."

Ozzy

Reply to
Ozzy

As a Twainolator, I'm pained to note that the master was wrong about microbes.

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

Lewis Perin wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@panix1.panix.com:

He wasn't, strictly, if you allow for what the term "microbes" meant to the medical layman in his time -- microscopic disease organisms only, hence the fewer the better. (I seriously doubt if he was aware of the concept of benign intestinal florae.) No one can hold him responsible for not-quite-so earthskaking discoveries made at the tail end of his life, or maybe even after it, can they? :) He records elsewhere in the same autobiography that he'd seen homeopathic medicine go out and allopathic medicine (the precursor of modern-day doctoring) come in during his lifetime, which included the growing acceptance of the "germ theory" of disease and the start of antiseptic practices.

I think this attempt to keep current is another example of how unique and varied his mind was. Huckleberry Finn is a tale of (among other things) the gross inhumanities of slavery, yet it was written by a member of the slaveholding class who had initially fought for the South; he also stood up for the Jews in print, another thing that you'd hardly expect from an American gentile born in 1835; etc.

I am also a bit a bit of a Twainolator, you see. :)

Ozzy

Reply to
H C Polyp

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