I was trying to think of a good topic for my post today, but then this email came from a friend who works in the Emergency Department at a children’s hospital and I knew that I had to put the word out there.
Hi Loves,
I’m only telling you guys this because i love you and this totally freaked me out..
A 15 year old girl was admitted to the ED today after she had a constant headache for 2 weeks and her eyes and skin started turning yellow..it turns out she has Chronic Liver Failure and its because she had been taking Green Tea Diet Pills that you can get anywhere. She has been immediately listed for a transplant and she is in really rough shape. I know that when I was in high school, I was really naive and took diet pills too but they are SO bad for you. If you or anyone you know has been taking these please please please stop. They have not been approved by the FDA or any medical association and they are so dangerous.
After receiving the email, I decided to do some research. Turns out, what your mother told you is true: moderation really is key. As this article states, “the polyphenols present in green tea plants or herbs could pose health risks to humans if extracted and packaged in highly concentrated doses, says a new University of Toronto study published in the current issue of Free Radical Biology and Medicine.”
What is a highly concentrated dose? That which is found in green tea diet pills. In a study done on mice, low doses of polyphenols “protected the liver or isolated liver cells against oxygen radicals,” while high concentrations of polyphenols caused liver toxicity, which is exactly what happened to this unknowing 15 year old girl.
In other words: a mug of green tea can benefit your overall health, while green tea taken in pill form can have severe and possibly deadly consequences. This confirms what we already know about diet pills: they are often more detrimental to our bodies than beneficial.
As my friend says in her email, you are all smart, beautiful, amazing women. If you or anyone you know has been taking these pills to lose weight, I hope that this poor girl’s story will make you reconsider.
With lots of love,
Melissa
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