The news became national headlines recently, but there have been studies that suggest that taking green tea extract pills can cause liver problems. This is something of a shock to most in the healthy community who believe that green tea is a super anti-oxidant. If green tea is so good, how can it be harmful to the liver?

Well, the answer lies in how these green tea pills are made. The distinction must be made between green tea—as plain tea—and green tea extract. They are two very different things.
The potential problem with taking green tea extract. This is because the pills contain extremely high levels of Catechins. In moderate to high (obtainable though drinking several glasses of tea a day) doses, these catechins are in fact beneficial. But, when you take green tea extract supplements you are getting enormous amounts. So much that it can hurt the liver because the liver cannot process it.

The big issue is that the super high doses of catechins are good for: anti-cancer, anti-inflammation, and as an all around anti-oxidant. The ability of green tea to work better than vitamin C, E, Ginkgo Biloba, and any other number of powerful anti-oxidants has been documented over and over. So, you have hundreds of scientific studies that say: to help prevent against the damage of free radicals you should take high doses of EGC (the potent chemical catechins in Green Tea).

But, and it’s a big but, these same catechins have caused acute liver failure in some people.

That’s a big issue. It’s something that you need to think about.

My personal opinion is to avoid taking green tea extract supplements. I would only suggest taking them if you are dealing with a cancer currently. If you are only taking them as a precaution, then I would suggest an alternative.

The alternative is to drink more green tea.

Look at it this way. The studies of humans, long term, have all focused on the Asian cultures where they drink green tea as a daily beverage. They do not take supplemental pills. They don’t take the extract and take it in lieu of green tea as a beverage.

So I would say drink a high quality green tea. The phrase high quality is important. It’s not necessarily about taste, though that is important for lots of people, it’s about the quality of the tea. There was a documentary about the production of Green Tea in China, and it was an incredibly interesting piece. It showed that a lot of the green tea is grown with heavy pesticides. There is a section in the documentary that shows the buyer-a connoisseur who imports all kinds of green tea—at a small village where lots of local small tea merchants bring him bags of tea. He can smell the heavy pesticides on many of the lots.

If you are a fan of green tea, or good documentaries, then I suggest you check it out. It’s called All In This Tea. The documentarian behind the movie is the famous Les Blank.

So I would get a good organic green tea, and try and drink at least 3 cups a day. If you have never drunk green tea before, then 3 cups is a good start. Eventually six cups would be an ideal situation.

Here are my favorite picks. They will be cheaper than your local supermarket, and that’s if your local supermarket even carries organic green tea. I buy online in bulk, so I also save money that way. You can get several boxes at a time.

There are a few ways to brew your green tea: Gunpowder, Matcha, or Tea Bags.

Gunpowder Green Tea

Customers have uploaded photos of the tea they received, so you can get an idea about what the product looks like. This is a nice way to enjoy tea. It is a good alternative to using tea bags.

Matcha-Green Tea Powder

Matcha is a really popular method of drinking green tea without using the tea bag.