Excessive ice tea leads to man's kidney failure

Matt Cantor

Newser staff

This May 21, 2007 file photo shows a glass of iced tea in Concord, N.H. Doctors have traced an Arkansas man's kidney failure to an unusual cause — his habit of drinking a gallon of iced tea each day. He said he drank about 16 8-ounce cups of iced tea every day. Black tea has the chemical oxalate which known to cause kidney stones or even kidney failure in excessive amounts. The man is on dialysis, perhaps for the rest of his life. The case report is in the Thursday, April 2, 2015 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. (AP Photo/Larry Crowe)

(NEWSER) – A man's kidney failure has been linked to his excessive iced tea habit—but don't worry, you're probably not approaching the danger zone. The 56-year-old Arkansas man was drinking 16 glasses of the stuff daily, amounting to a gallon every day,the AP reports. Black tea contains a lot of a compound called oxalate, which can lead to kidney issues,LiveScience reports.

"With 16 cups of tea daily, the patient's daily consumption of oxalate was more than 1500mg—a level that is higher than the average American intake by a factor of approximately three to 10," scientists say.

The man was hospitalized last year, and his urine contained lots of the calcium oxalate crystals involved in kidney stones. He was put on dialysis and he may be on it for life, doctors note.

"We are not advising against tea consumption," a researcher says. "If you are healthy and drink tea with moderation, it should not cause damage to your kidneys."

In fact, past studies have suggested that a more reasonable amount of tea can actually fight kidney stones, an outside researcher tells Reuters. Still, many of us apparently consume too much oxalate, which can be found in spinach, chocolate, nuts, and wheat bran, among other foods. While experts don't recommend going beyond 50mg per day, the average American consumes 152mg to 511mg, researchers note. (In a comparable case, a woman died after drinking 2 gallons of Coke daily.)

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