What tea to drink?

Hi
I’ve been advised whilst on chemo not to drink Green Tea. But then a friend said she was told not to drink any herbal tea, anyone else heard of this? Quite like earl grey and that has bergomot in it, wonder if thats ok? Anyone got any info on this?
Thanks
Smiler
x

Hi Smiler, which chemo are you being given, and why are you being advised not to drink green tea? Was this advice from your consultant / oncologist / specialist nurse?

Interesting that you’ve been given that info as when I was diagnosed with mets (to my liver) I was advised by my oncologist to drink green tea!

I have drunk herbal teas for over 13 years now through 3 lots of chemo without any ill effects. I know there are certain foods that you need to avoid if you are on a particular chemo (lapatanib is an example - you can’t have grapefruit juice or fresh grapefruit).

No wonder we’re all confused…

I drank fruit flavoured herbal teas a lot of the time when I was on Taxotere as I could barely taste anything else!

The only thing I was warned not to have were things like vitamin supplements as they can interfere with the chemo drugs.

Hi,
was 1st advised not to have green tea on Ac chemo by chemo nurse, cherub I was also advised to not take vitamin supplements.
Havent been told anything about grapefruit. Like you say we hear so many things no wonder we get confused! think i will just continue to enjoy my different fruit and herbal teas!
Smiler
x

I’ve been happily drinking green tea on Epi-CMF - it’s one of the only hots drinks I can stand … will have to ask next week if I shouldn’t have been!

Because green tea is so rich in anti-oxidants the theory goes that it may interfere with the nastyness of the chemo. You want chemo to be nasty - you don’t want your body’s immune system fighting back.
I think it is a fairly bogus theory and having just had Taxotere I doubt if there is an anti-oxidant in the world that could impede that stuff!
But in the case of prostate cancer they think that green tea stimulates a gene element within the cancer cells which makes then less suceptible to chemotherapy.

Grapefruit is a different deal. Grapefruit juice is contra-indicated with LOTS of medication. It blocks an enzyme in the bowel which prevents normal metabilisation of drugs and so they can rise to toxic levels.

I am guzzling a lot of fruit teas too.

Grapefruit is a definite no no for anyone on lapatanib and is also mentioned in the factsheet. Interesting msmolly that it’s contra-indicated with lots of medication - thanks for that.

The only problem I found when I had my first lot of chemo was that I drank a lot of the ‘red’ herbal teas such as strawberry etc but now find I can’t even bear the smell of them because of the association!! Weird…