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Tea and stomach pain


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16 replies to this topic

#1 oehaut

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Posted 23 April 2010 - 04:36 PM


I started drinking tea 3 days ago, and every time I finish my cup, about 30 minutes later, I get a very bad stomach pain which last for about 1h. I had drink only 1 other time tea in my life before this, and it was last summer, and the exact same thing happened, althought it was matcha that I had put in cold water and drank like this so I was thinking it might have to do with the fact that it had not been brewed.

Is this a caffeine sensitivity? Should I keep drinking and will eventually get use to this? Damn, it would suck if I could not enjoy the health benefits of this beverage. I never drank caffee either so I don't know why this is happening with tea.

Edited by oehaut, 23 April 2010 - 04:37 PM.


#2 Skötkonung

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Posted 23 April 2010 - 05:02 PM

I would try a very light caffeine type like white tea or a flavored rooibos. One is a mild camellia sinensis derivative, the other is aspalathus linearis. It will help you isolate whether the issue is plant specific or stimulant specific.

Do you drink coffee? It has much higher concentrations of caffeine than green tea.

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#3 jackdaniels

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Posted 23 April 2010 - 06:47 PM

I get stomach problems when I drink tea on an empty stomach. With food it is no problem.

#4 RighteousReason

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Posted 23 April 2010 - 07:35 PM

I have drank green/white tea for a long time but only recently it has started bothering my stomach

#5 NDM

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Posted 24 April 2010 - 01:51 AM

Try some sencha instead of matcha...I recently switched from the former to the latter, but although they are both green tea, they seem quite different animals in terms of taste and feeling. By the way, I eat all what's left in the cup (the matcha powder).

#6 Kristjan

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Posted 25 April 2010 - 07:11 AM

I get stomach problems when I drink tea on an empty stomach. With food it is no problem.


I agree.

I feel awful if I drink tea on an empty stomach, but if I have it after a meal it's fine.

#7 oehaut

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Posted 25 April 2010 - 01:21 PM

Do you drink coffee? It has much higher concentrations of caffeine than green tea.


Nope, never drank coffee.

I might look for white tea.

I get stomach problems when I drink tea on an empty stomach. With food it is no problem.


I was worried about the mineral binding capacity of tea, so I was avoiding it during meal time. Should I trade off?

Try some sencha instead of matcha...I recently switched from the former to the latter, but although they are both green tea, they seem quite different animals in terms of taste and feeling. By the way, I eat all what's left in the cup (the matcha powder).


Well, i'm drinking sencha right now, althought it's a powdered form.

I'll try to see one more week if I can get use to it, maybe smaller dose to get started. Otherwise i'll try to get it with food. Then I might switch to a white tea to see how it feels on an empty stomach.

Edited by oehaut, 25 April 2010 - 01:21 PM.


#8 Skötkonung

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Posted 26 April 2010 - 10:38 PM

I was worried about the mineral binding capacity of tea, so I was avoiding it during meal time. Should I trade off?

Is your mineral intake on the threshold of inadequate?

#9 oehaut

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Posted 27 April 2010 - 01:58 AM

I was worried about the mineral binding capacity of tea, so I was avoiding it during meal time. Should I trade off?

Is your mineral intake on the threshold of inadequate?


Folate, B3, B6, vit E, calcium, potassium, magnesium are all low (around 100% of RDA or less in some case) I'm supplementing magnesium and zinc.

#10 Sillewater

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Posted 27 April 2010 - 02:22 AM

Does green tea extract do this to you? Sometimes when I drink matcha on an empty stomach I get a weird feeling. Kinda between pain and my stomach turning into something heavy. However Green tea extract doesn't do this to me so I don't know what it is. Also steeped tea doesn't do this, only matcha. Could it be liver pain?

Here are some studies, but I don't think its related:

Biofactors. 2010 Jan;36(1):43-51.
The modifying effects of green tea polyphenols on acute colitis and inflammation-associated colon carcinogenesis in male ICR mice.
Kim M, Murakami A, Miyamoto S, Tanaka T, Ohigashi H.
Division of Food Science and Biotechnology, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan.

Int J Antimicrob Agents. 2009 May;33(5):473-8. Epub 2009 Jan 20.
Green tea inhibits Helicobacter growth in vivo and in vitro.
Stoicov C, Saffari R, Houghton J.
Department of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, 364 Plantation Street, Worcester, MA 01605, USA.

Rheumatology (Oxford). 2010 Mar;49(3):467-79. Epub 2009 Dec 23.
Green tea extract inhibits chemokine production, but up-regulates chemokine receptor expression, in rheumatoid arthritis synovial fibroblasts and rat adjuvant-induced arthritis.
Marotte H, Ruth JH, Campbell PL, Koch AE, Ahmed S.
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Department of Veterans Affairs, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.

I seem to remember reading something about the gastrointestinal system and chemokines that causes upset, but I can't find it right now.

Edited by Sillewater, 27 April 2010 - 02:22 AM.


#11 Sillewater

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Posted 27 April 2010 - 02:37 AM

I was looking through my notes and found this paper:

Flavanols: digestion, absorption and bioactivity

I can't access it anymore, but I remember reading that the author had reports of subjects having gastrointestinal complaints after consuming a green tea extract that had I think 900mg of ECGC.

On the forum we had a green tea thread and I cronwood said that one should only take 800mg a day which I think equals 10 cups or so. It could be that since we used matcha we took more than that so had an adverse reaction. Should definitely be careful (liver toxicity).

It could also be that the bitterness causes the stomach upset (but that doesn't explain the green tea extract, unless the stomach has taste receptors, which I think it does).

#12 JLL

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Posted 27 April 2010 - 08:40 AM

Possibly the tannins in the tea. I get that too if I drink bitter tea on an empty stomach. Are you drinking good or bad quality tea? Green or black? You could try throwing the first brew away, make another cup using the same leaves and see if that makes a difference.

#13 oehaut

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Posted 27 April 2010 - 12:16 PM

Thanks, Sillewater, for the reference.

Possibly the tannins in the tea. I get that too if I drink bitter tea on an empty stomach. Are you drinking good or bad quality tea? Green or black? You could try throwing the first brew away, make another cup using the same leaves and see if that makes a difference.


I'd say it's good quality tea, it was recommend to myself by someone on the board. It's green powered sencha. So i'm actually putting the powder in my cup and drinking it like this. I'm using 1g right now so I don't know how much ECGC this can give me. Actually i'm eating my breakfast right now and i'm just about to try to get my cup of tea right after so i'll see if I get the same pain.

#14 Skötkonung

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Posted 28 April 2010 - 09:31 PM

I was worried about the mineral binding capacity of tea, so I was avoiding it during meal time. Should I trade off?

Is your mineral intake on the threshold of inadequate?


Folate, B3, B6, vit E, calcium, potassium, magnesium are all low (around 100% of RDA or less in some case) I'm supplementing magnesium and zinc.

It would seem prudent to correct your mineral intake through diet, as anti-nutrients (like phytic acid) and natural digestive processes are going to prohibit complete digestion of all the minerals shown in CRON-o-meter.

Vitamin E can be tricky, but organ meat and fish, olive oil / olives, some nuts, asparagus and spinach are all great sources. I get my B vitamins through chicken liver, about 100g daily in addition to other meats and greens. Spinach has a lot of magnesium... 5oz has 112mg.

I'd say it's good quality tea, it was recommend to myself by someone on the board. It's green powered sencha. So i'm actually putting the powder in my cup and drinking it like this. I'm using 1g right now so I don't know how much ECGC this can give me. Actually i'm eating my breakfast right now and i'm just about to try to get my cup of tea right after so i'll see if I get the same pain.

You are consuming sencha tea like a matcha. Matcha tea is specially prepared to be consumed whole, sencha leaves should not be consumed, only steeped. In the Zhejiang Province of China, where green tea is mostly produced and is thought to have originated, the farmers allow goats to freely roam their fields. The goats eat all the weeds that grow around the green tea plants, but won't touch the tea itself. Apparently it really upsets their stomach. My guess is that matcha green tea is prepared in such a way (probably from a higher grade leaf) to make it palatable.

Edited by Skötkonung, 28 April 2010 - 09:37 PM.


#15 oehaut

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Posted 29 April 2010 - 02:25 AM

It would seem prudent to correct your mineral intake through diet, as anti-nutrients (like phytic acid) and natural digestive processes are going to prohibit complete digestion of all the minerals shown in CRON-o-meter.

Vitamin E can be tricky, but organ meat and fish, olive oil / olives, some nuts, asparagus and spinach are all great sources. I get my B vitamins through chicken liver, about 100g daily in addition to other meats and greens. Spinach has a lot of magnesium... 5oz has 112mg.


Thanks. One last work to complete for school, then i'll have plenty of time to keep tweaking my diet. I need to organize myself better to be able to consume more vegetable.

By the way Skot, what do you think of freeze-dried vegetable powder such as Superfood from t-nation.com? I was thinking this might be a way of increasing my veggies intake. I found a few studies where veggies/fruits powders were having good effect on biomarkers of oxidation, but... it's always a leap of faith to assume that they can have the same effect as fresh vegetable - or maybe not.

You are consuming sencha tea like a matcha. Matcha tea is specially prepared to be consumed whole, sencha leaves should not be consumed, only steeped. In the Zhejiang Province of China, where green tea is mostly produced and is thought to have originated, the farmers allow goats to freely roam their fields. The goats eat all the weeds that grow around the green tea plants, but won't touch the tea itself. Apparently it really upsets their stomach. My guess is that matcha green tea is prepared in such a way (probably from a higher grade leaf) to make it palatable.


I'm wondering then why do they sell a powdered sencha. Well, i've ordered some white tea that is low in tannins and supposed to be of great quality. I'll see how it does, because even drinking my green tea right after a meal gives me some pain, albeit not as much as on an empty stomach. It's a waste tho because I had order for 40$ of this green tea :p

#16 e Volution

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Posted 29 April 2010 - 03:55 AM

I get my B vitamins through chicken liver, about 100g daily in addition to other meats and greens. Spinach has a lot of magnesium... 5oz has 112mg.

Skot, I would love your thoughts on this issue I am having with whole food vs supplement route for essential nutrients. When I started this journey I was much more pro-food than I am now, I figured with organ meats and bone broths, etc I could get all the essential vitamin and minerals I needed. No need to count and measure and track everything! But now since at ImmInst its like well we have some good science to say get X mg of this, and Y mcg of that, etc, and it seems almost like just adding some chicken liver to your diet each day won't necessarily put you into the optimum dose of X, or possibly allow you to exceed the optimum dose of Y, again etc. What do you think about this?

#17 Skötkonung

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Posted 29 April 2010 - 08:46 AM

I get my B vitamins through chicken liver, about 100g daily in addition to other meats and greens. Spinach has a lot of magnesium... 5oz has 112mg.

Skot, I would love your thoughts on this issue I am having with whole food vs supplement route for essential nutrients. When I started this journey I was much more pro-food than I am now, I figured with organ meats and bone broths, etc I could get all the essential vitamin and minerals I needed. No need to count and measure and track everything! But now since at ImmInst its like well we have some good science to say get X mg of this, and Y mcg of that, etc, and it seems almost like just adding some chicken liver to your diet each day won't necessarily put you into the optimum dose of X, or possibly allow you to exceed the optimum dose of Y, again etc. What do you think about this?


I'll message you about it right now so as to keep this thread on topic.




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