Green tea is a drink to which benefits for the body have been attributed and is considered a healthy drink when consumed without sugar and in moderation. However, green tea extract is not safe for everyone, it can damage the liver of people with certain genetic variations.
Green tea, black tea, oolong tea, and white tea all come from the Camellia sinensis plant. Tea is a source of caffeine and polyphenols. The Harvard Nutrition Source notes that polyphenols, or flavonoids, are likely a key component to making tea a healthy beverage.
Drinking green tea is associated with better cardiovascular health, lower levels of inflammation, and a lower risk of developing chronic disease.
“Observational research has found that tea consumption of 2 to 3 cups daily is associated with a reduced risk of premature death, heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes,” Harvard shares.
Some people often consume green tea extract as a supplement. Long-term use of high-dose green tea extract is thought to provide some protection against disease, however it may also affect health in some people.
A study by researchers at Rutgers University found that long-term consumption of high doses of green tea extract can cause liver damage.
The Rutgers research, published in The Journal of Dietary Supplements, indicates that two genetic variants predict some risk.
The study authors acknowledge that they are still a long way from being able to predict who can safely take a high dose of green tea extract. The risk of liver toxicity is only associated with high levels of green tea supplements and not with drinking green tea, tea, or even taking lower doses of green tea extract.
“Learning to predict who will suffer liver damage is potentially important because there is growing evidence that high-dose green tea extract may have important health benefits for those who can safely take it,” said Hamed Samavat, lead author of the study and assistant professor of nutritional sciences at the Rutgers School of Health Professions.
The report shared by Rutgers University states that the year-long trial included more than 1,000 postmenopausal women and collected data at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months.
Early signs of liver damage were somewhat more common than normal in women with a variation in catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) genotype and strongly predicted by a variation in uridine 5′-diphospho-glucuronosyltransferase 1A4 (UGT1A4 genotype). .
On average, participants with the high-risk UGT1A4 genotype saw the enzyme that indicates liver stress increase by almost 80% after nine months of consuming the green tea supplement, while those with low-risk genotypes saw the same enzyme increased 30%.
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