This is not great reporting by the BBC. Most grievously, as others have mentioned, they don't mention the dosages this guy was taking.
The important point to grasp behind all this concern over "supplements" is that there's no such thing as a supplement. Everything that's not a food is a drug. If something is not part of a human diet somewhere - i.e. if it's been extracted and refined significantly - then it's a drug. (Does that mean you regulate supplements? No, because then you end up in ridiculous situations like banning high doses of water-soluble B vitamins. Banning certain brands and formulations is sometimes appropriate.)
Drugs have a dose-response curve, a median lethal dose, and all the rest. People taking "supplements" (taking them seriously, beyond taking a common-or-garden multivitamin you can pick up anywhere) should be aware of this and understand the risks.
"Natural" doesn't mean safe. Polio is natural.
Not all sets of genetics tolerate all "supplements" at recommended dosages.
In vitro is not in vivo.
Animal studies are not human studies.
I got into nutrition and supplementation through bodybuilding, and within that community the knowledge that things you put in your body can hurt you, do your homework is fairly widespread and well passed-on. Unfortunately that perspective hasn't really permeated broader fitness culture.
I think the attitude of "have this problem, take this pill" (without regard for risks or better options) is mostly at fault here. I'd argue corporate pharmaceutical companies have some culpability here - "ask your doctor if X is right for you" - or don't, and just bloody do some cardio or something.
This article is only interesting if you still conflate "green tea" with "natural" and "natural" with "safe".
>This article is only interesting if you still conflate "green tea" with "natural" and "natural" with "safe".
Green tea _is_ natural. And I conflate "consumed daily by millions of people for thousands of years without incident" with safe. Green tea is not an obscure herb like echinachea or ginko biloba. The idea that putting it in capsules would make it dangerous is not obvious at all. It sounds like magical thinking. So the fact that it is true, and it is in fact dangerous, is actually quite curious to my mind.
"All things are poison, and nothing is without poison, the dosage alone makes it so a thing is not a poison." - Paracelsus
Think about the amount of green tea (the plant) that you actually consume in a cup of tea. Even if it's loose tea and you've done a sloppy job, perhaps a few granules.
Now imagine popping a couple of capsules packed with the stuff every day. All of a sudden your intake of something has spiked a few hundred times. It could be cinnamon and you'd have health consequences.
Also, you're usually just drinking the bits that readily dissolve in water, not the whole leaf.
Go to a tea shop and order some Dragonwell, and drink it. Then have a bowl of matcha. You will feel the difference, and it can be a rather alarming one.
Edit: Why that's a big distinction: Your body typically flushes water soluble chemicals fairly easily. It has a harder time with the ones that aren't water soluble, so they tend to accumulate over time. So capsule of tea leaves is probably not the same thing as a cup of tea, from a pharmacological perspective, and theres good basis to assume that it has a lot more ability to hurt you. The same goes for pill version of traditional medicinal teas (echinacea, kava kava, etc.)
Tonka bean has been eaten daily by millions of people for thousands of years. It's delicious. I had some in a dessert just last month. Fantastically good.
The seeds contain 1-3% coumarin. In large quantities, it's toxic to the liver and kidneys, and is banned as a food additive in the US.
As others noted, there are a lot of things we consume in normal doses that if you consumed 10-50x as much would likely cause problems for at least some percent of the people who eat them.
>As others noted, there are a lot of things we consume in normal doses that if you consumed 10-50x as much would likely cause problems for at least some percent of the people who eat them.
Exactly: try drinking 50x as much water as you normally do. You'll probably die of water poisoning. Is water a poison?
Not only this, but the levels of herbicides+pesticides in grocery-store brand teas is apparently terrible.
I've had a friend who worked at a chemical testing lab for a grocery chain who flat out stopped drinking tea - even organic certified - after running the tests for the client. Every single brand tested positive for quantities a trained biochemist wasn't comfortable with.
I can't imagine how bad concentrated extracts are.
I get the sentiment, but it's not quite that simple. For example, certain kinds of red yeast rice are banned for sale in the USA because they contain medically significant amounts of lovastatin.
Pedantic, I know, but I think the parent's real point (pay attention to what you put in your body) is only strengthened by the fact that this line is blurry.
Paleo Survival MMO game. All players are required to use an omnidirectional treadmill for movement control, and your nutrition for the day is determined by the resource nodes you harvest. You have to form raid parties and take down whales, mammoths, bison, razorbacks, or aurochs in order to get larger quantities of meat. If you die in the game, you are required to donate one unit of whole blood, and will suffer a crippling movement speed malus every time you log in, until you do. (So don't die more than once every two months.)
I should stop now, before someone starts thinking this might be a good idea.
The important point to grasp behind all this concern over "supplements" is that there's no such thing as a supplement. Everything that's not a food is a drug. If something is not part of a human diet somewhere - i.e. if it's been extracted and refined significantly - then it's a drug. (Does that mean you regulate supplements? No, because then you end up in ridiculous situations like banning high doses of water-soluble B vitamins. Banning certain brands and formulations is sometimes appropriate.)
Drugs have a dose-response curve, a median lethal dose, and all the rest. People taking "supplements" (taking them seriously, beyond taking a common-or-garden multivitamin you can pick up anywhere) should be aware of this and understand the risks.
"Natural" doesn't mean safe. Polio is natural.
Not all sets of genetics tolerate all "supplements" at recommended dosages.
In vitro is not in vivo.
Animal studies are not human studies.
I got into nutrition and supplementation through bodybuilding, and within that community the knowledge that things you put in your body can hurt you, do your homework is fairly widespread and well passed-on. Unfortunately that perspective hasn't really permeated broader fitness culture.
I think the attitude of "have this problem, take this pill" (without regard for risks or better options) is mostly at fault here. I'd argue corporate pharmaceutical companies have some culpability here - "ask your doctor if X is right for you" - or don't, and just bloody do some cardio or something.
This article is only interesting if you still conflate "green tea" with "natural" and "natural" with "safe".