Green Tea?

[pelagia]

Does anyone know of any hard evidence about possible green tea complications post-transplant?  This is something we always drank in our house prior to my husband's transplant.  During one of the sessions at the hospital about things to avoid, Stephen's NP mentioned green tea.  When I questioned this, she indicated that caution was warranted, and then mentioned that green tea is often sold with a variety of herbs and other things mixed in.

This makes me wonder - what do Japanese kidney transplant recipients drink?  Green tea is an important part of their everyday lives. 

There are many benefits to drinking green tea, but not if it is going to cause rejection.  I hate to have it around for me if Stephen can't drink it.

I can't find anything on the web except a few anecdotal comments.  We make our own tea, so additives are not going to be an issue.

[st789]

Huummm...I knew that Green tea is good for anti_oxidation but is good thing that you brought this up.

[MIbarra]

When I was on dialysis, the head nurse told me green tea in large amounts was not good for the kidney. Other than that, I've not found any articles about it or any other medical professional that has told me to stay away from it.

[monrein]

I've never heard of any problems with green tea and I used to drink quite a bit of it post-transplant first time around.  What is crucial is to avoid the herbal tea mixtures as the sometimes have "medicinal" herbs included for good measure and some even fairly innocuous ones are contraindicated for us.  But as far as I know, good pure green tea shouldn't be an issue.  I'll ask my dietician when next I see her.

There are some articles on the internet about the benefits of green tea for liver transplants so I don't see how it could be problematic for kidney rejection.  It also is good for heart health. 

[stauffenberg]

The most toxic herb for renal transplant patients is St. John's Wort, which caused some people taking it as a 'natural and harmless' sleep aid to lose their graft because the herb rendered their immunosuppression ineffective.  The problem with herbs is that there are thousands of them and conventional medicine has absolutely no interest in testing their compatibility with drugs from the standard pharmacopia, so the experimenting patient just can't know what is in store for him by way of drug interactions.  The problem becomes especially difficult for 'green tea,' since it has no exact chemical definition, and a wide variety of medically very different substances are marketed commercially and used in traditional medicine under the broad, generic name of 'green tea.'

[pelagia]

The green tea leaves I am thinking of are from the shrub or tree called Camellia sinensis.  Here in the US you buy them in the grocery store in the tea section or in a tea shop.  My understanding is that this type of tea is the unfermented version of the same tea leaves we use to make black tea.  Given the same source as black tea, it seems like it should be safe. On the other hand, there are compounds in green tea leaves called polyphenols that are powerful antioxidants.  Apparently fermenting the tea to make the familiar black tea breaks down some of these compounds.  Green tea also contains caffeine, but less than coffee or black tea.  Our Japanese friends have brought us bags of very high quality green tea as gifts.  I'm certain it doesn't have anything else mixed in.  We are definitely staying away from other herbs, except the common ones used in cooking.

[monrein]

Well I certainly drank a lot of green tea during my long transplant.  I love really good green tea.