Commercially Available Teas "Not Suitable For Human Consumption": Potentially Hazardous Amounts of Lead, Aluminum, Arsenic & Co in Every Cup

Would all commercially available teas have to be labeled like this?

I am usually not a fan of articles with titles like this one (see above) - they have what you call in Germany "Bildzeitungsniveau" (the German tabloid with news like "World about to disappear in a black hole, when CERN starts operating). It is however hard to resist the urge to use a headline like the one above, if the it fits the results of peer-reviewed scientific paper so well, as it is the case with the relatively recent paper from the University of Alberta and the Luleâ University of Technology in Sweden this SuppVersity article is (almost) all about.

The corresponding experiment, the results of which were published in the peer-reviewed open-access Journal of Toxicology in October 2013, already, addresses the increasing concern about contamination of foodstuffs and natural health products. With the emphasis being on foodstuff and health, it's only logical that tea, or more precisely all currently available off-the-shelf varieties of black, green, white, and oolong teas sold in tea bags were used for analysis in the said study.

So what did the researchers do?

Schwalfenberg, Genius (no joke, the 2n author is a real 'Genius by name') and Rodushkin conducted a three-step analysis in the course of which they analyzed the content of previously identified tea contaminants like aluminum, fluoride, mercury, lead, cadmium and arsenic (Fujimaki. 2004; Lung. 2008; Wang. 2008; Alvarez-Ayuso. 2011; Tan. 2012) in commercial tea preparations.

Table 1: There are not just bad, but also healthy minerals in tea!

Before we get to the "bad stuff", though, let's start with the positive findings of their investigation. The data in Table 1 is after all evidence enough that there are also "healthy" minerals in tea - the amount is not high enough to cover your RDA, but this does not mean that it could not be at least partly related to the undeniable health benefits researchers all around the world report for people who consume uncontaminated tea on a regular base. As a loyal SuppVersity readers you know most, if not all of them from previous articles on tea. The reason I still believe it's worth enumerating them again is that I don't want you to give up on your beloved (?) tea too easily - I mean, Coke is not an alternative and for coffee fungi and other stuff could make a similarly unhealthy "supplement" to your breakfast beverage:

• Cardiovascular benefits - When we are talking about health in general and heart health in particular, most people will think of green tea. That's pretty unfortunate, because there is ample research for all varieties of teas that they can lower blood lipids, provide "clean" and thus heart healthy energy, and exert antithrombotic and anti-hypertensive effects.
• Anticancer effects - Despite the fact that the anti-cancer effects have mostly observed in in-vitro studies, there is plenty of epidemiological evidence that tea drinkers have a lower cancer risk, than the average coke guzzler (not necessarily breast cancer, though ➫ SuppVersity Facebook News).
• Metabolic syndrome - While more recent studies clearly suggest that the active weight loss effects of tea, in general, and green tea, in particular, have been totally overblown, there is still a host of controlled trials, where adding tea (not necessarily green tea) improved the effects of a energy restricted diet. Compared to the rodent trials which are still fueling the myth of the potent thermogenic effects of (green) tea, the real world results in human beings are however downright disappointing.

• 

  A green tea marinade will keep your meats fresh | learn more

  Anti-infective properties - Only few people (SuppVersity readers included - of course) know that green tea can be used as a mouthwash and is currently researched as an anti-bacterial food additive by researchers all around the world. According to a paper by Steinmann et al. (2013), the anti-infective effects are mediated by the antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal properties of Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). The same EGCG about which you've read only recently on the SuppVersity that it is not exactly as useful as a fat loss adjuvant, as the hype would have you believe.
• Other beneficial effects - Under "Miscellaneous Effects", Schwalfenberg et al. also list the nephropotective effects of green tea, which could come very handy if you guzzle mercury contaminated green tea, everyday (unfortunately, mercury is your least problem with tea), the anti-depressive researchers have observed in people consuming 4+ cups of tea per day and the hitherto unconfirmed hypothesis that tea drinkers are (better) protected against Alzheimer’s and neurological decline.

In view of these benefits it's only logical that the Canadian + Swedish research team chose to repeat  the dichotomous health effects of drinking tea in the title of their paper "The Benefits and Risks of Consuming Brewed Tea" (my emphasis in Schwalfenberg. 2013)

Organic is not better than regular tea

To obtain a dataset that would be as comprehensive, accurate and practically relevant as possible the authors bought 30 different organic and non-organic white, green, oolong, and black teas from the the shelves of Canadian supermarkets and analyzed (a) the "raw" tea leaves (LEAF), (b) tea that had been steeped for 3-4 minutes (3MIN), (c) tea that had been steeped for 15–17 minutes (15MIN).

Know your teas: As a SuppVersity reader you will probably know that all teas come from the same plant. It's the processing that determines if we call it "white", "green", or whatever else:

• White tea: young leaves or new growth buds, withered, uncured, baked dry 
• Green tea: steamed or dry cooking in hot pans to prevent oxidation; dried tea leaves may be separate leaves or rolled into pellets (gunpowder tea)
• Oolong tea: withering of leaves under sun and warm winds with further oxidation standard between green and black teas
• Black tea: leaves are completely oxidized, withered

Due to the processing of the leaves tea from the same camellia sinensis plant can contain different amounts of contaminants depending on whether you buy it as white, green, oolong or black tea, or shredded green tea supplement.

Still, the main determinant is and remains the soil it was grown on (see Table 4)?

All tea samples underwent the same standardized procedures before they were analyzed in their raw form (cut / shredded leaves) or as an infusion that had been prepared with only one tea bag (containing 2-3g of tea) in 250 mL of distilled water in fine bone china cups.

As you will already have expected, the scientists did not just detect the previously mentioned "good minerals" (exact values see Table 1), and a host of other beneficial trace elements, i.e.

• boron 19–115µg/L, cobalt 0.4–3.56µg/L, 
• copper 26–106µg/L, chromium 0.2–14.6µg/L, 
• iron 19–62.5µg/L, manganese 534–6351µg/L, 
• molybdenum 0.03–0.131µg/L, 
• selenium <0.1–0.34µg/L, 
• vanadium <0.01–0.151µg/L, and zinc 44.6–187µg/L,

in their samples. Schwalfenberg et al. found highly significant and, more importantly, physiologically relevant amounts of toxic elements, as well:

Table 2: Established toxicant limits in supplements (µg/day).

If you look at the value in Table 3 and compare them to the limits in Table 2, there is one thing you should keep in mind: These limits have been set by average exposure, not based on toxicity tests - that sounds very comforting, right?

"Public health warnings or industry regulation indicated" -- It sounds pretty fearmongering and I would not have used it as a subheading right beneath the introduction, if the statement "Public health warnings or industry regulation might be indicated to protect consumer safety." (Schwalfenberg. 2013) was no literal citation from the conclusion of the paper I have here right in front of me.

Table 3: Levels of mercury (Hg), lead (Pb), aluminum (Al), arsenic (As) and cadmium (Cd) in tea infusions after 3-4 or 15-17 min of brewing; all values in µg/L (Schwalfenberg. 2013)

A brief glimpse at the data in Table 3 does moreover confirm there are plenty of toxins in the average Canadian super market tea, but it does not tell you how problematic the contamination actually is. To understand that you'd have to cimpare those values to the established toxicant limits Table 2, which do - and this is and will always be ridiculous -  obviously depend on where you live *sarcastic laughter*... but enough of the unproductive sarcasm, let's see what we've got:

"All teas contained significant amounts of aluminum. Tea  leaves contained from 568 to 3287 ng/g of tea. All brewed teas steeped for 3 or 15 minutes contained detectable levels of aluminum. The range was 1131µgm/L to 8324µgm/L steeping for 3 minute and 1413µgm/L to 11449µgm/L steeping for 15 minutes. Only 2 teas had levels above acceptable limits at 3 minutes of brewing but 6 of the teas had levels greater than the upper acceptable daily limit of 7000µgm/L. Clearly letting tea steep for longer than 3 minutes is not advisable. Two of the organic green teas had levels above 10,000µgm/L brewed for 15 minutes."

In view of the fact that tea is by far not the only aluminum source you are expose to, the high levels of this toxic metal that easily accumulates in the body should be reason enough not to brew your tea - especially not organic tea - for more than 3 minutes.

Organic tea is a worse offender than regular

If you take a look at the amount of lead in the various tea samples it becomes even more obvious that "organic" tea is not necessarily better for your organs, as well. This is particularly true for the best-sellers green and black tea, both of which contain significantly more lead in the "organic" vs. "regular" variety.

Table 4: Toxicant levels according to origin; Pb: lead, Cd: cadmium, Al: aluminum, As: arsenic (Schwalfenberg. 2013)

Probably the main factor that influences the toxicant levels of teas is the place of origin, thoug. As you can see in the overview in Table 4, the highest amount of arsenic, was detected in Chinese oolong teas (organic or regular). The total arsenic levels in all teas, which ranged from 0.06µgm to 1.12µgm/L for tea that had been steeped for 3 minutes to 0.08 to 1.27µgm/L for tea that had been steeped for 15 minutes was highest in white tea - obviously also from China. And last but not least, ...

"...[a]ll tea leaves had detectable levels of cadmium. 21 teas had detectable levels after 15 minutes brewing while only 18  teas had detectable levels after 3 minutes brewing suggesting that there is further leaching of this toxicant into the water over time. [As the overview in Table 4 already suggests] the highest level was 0.067µgm/L found in standard oolong tea from China." (Schwalfenberg. 2013)

Not listed in the tables are the levels of tin, barium, antimony and thallium, which were detected in all tea samples, but at levels of which the authors state that they don't have to be "considered to be of concern" (Schwalfenberg. 2013).

Should you stop drinking tea? You know that I don't like to tell people what to do. Unless, obviously I am 100% sure that I am convinced that there is a serious health risk involved.

In the case of green, black or white tea, the evidence that this is the case is yet insufficient. Personally, I will still make sure to check the geographic origin of the tea leaves (not where it was processed and packaged!) and avoid all products with the bad 5-letter word C-H-I-N-A on the label.

Bottom line: "Not of concern" is not exactly what I would say about the overall results of the study at hand. I mean, in the end, the high levels of toxicants in some of the commercially available tea preparations - specifically those from China - could actually explain why the real-world results with commercially available teas and tea supplements often fall short of the rodent studies, which are often conducted with highly purified green tea products from companies like Sigma Aldrich.

Ah, ... one last thing to keep in mind is that 18 out of 30 tested commercial tea preparations contained mercury in amounts that were as high as 20 ng/g, but did not make it from the leave to the tea. With your digestive tract being a much more efficient nutrient and (unfortunately) toxicant extractor than hot water, tea supplements could pose an even greater risk of heavy metal exposure than tea.

References:

• Álvarez-Ayuso, E., Giménez, A., & Ballesteros, J. C. (2011). Fluoride accumulation by plants grown in acid soils amended with flue gas desulphurisation gypsum. Journal of hazardous materials, 192(3), 1659-1666.
• Hayacibara, M. F., Queiroz, C. S., Tabchoury, C. P. M., & Cury, J. A. (2004). Fluoride and aluminum in teas and tea-based beverages. Revista de Saúde Pública, 38(1), 100-105.
• Lung, S. C. C., Cheng, H. W., & Fu, C. B. (2007). Potential exposure and risk of fluoride intakes from tea drinks produced in Taiwan. Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, 18(2), 158-166.
• Steinmann, J., Buer, J., Pietschmann, T., & Steinmann, E. (2013). Anti‐infective properties of epigallocatechin‐3‐gallate (EGCG), a component of green tea. British journal of pharmacology, 168(5), 1059-1073.
• Tan, Z., & Xiao, G. (2012). Leaching characteristics of fly ash from Chinese medical waste incineration. Waste Management & Research, 30(3), 285-294.
• Schwalfenberg, G., Genuis, S. J., & Rodushkin, I. (2013). The Benefits and Risks of Consuming Brewed Tea: Beware of Toxic Element Contamination. Journal of toxicology, 2013.
• Wang, X. P., Ma, Y. J., & Xu, Y. C. (2008). [Studies on contents of arsenic, selenium, mercury and bismuth in tea samples collected from different regions by atomic fluorescence spectrometry]. Guang pu xue yu guang pu fen xi= Guang pu, 28(7), 1653-1657.

Boron Boosts T4 to T3 Conversion: Old School Testbooster, Future Fat Loss Adjuvant? Or Just Toxic Waste?

Let's be honest does this stuff look as if it was supposed to be eaten? No, well other minerals don't either, so what's the verdict: Test booster? No! Thyroid booster or toxic waste? Read and learn more...

Those of you who have been around for a while will remember the whole hoopla surrounding the purported, but never fully established let alone real-world significant testosterone boosting effect of this chemical agent which happens to the fifth element (meaning it has only 5 protons and its thus one of the first in the list of the elements ordered b proton numbers) in the periodic table. Since boron is produced entirely by cosmic ray spallation it is pretty rare and,... I could go on with more details, but I guess that should suffice to evoke the notion that we are dealing with some powerful, quasi superhuman stuff, right? So what the hell, why wouldn't it turn you into Superman or Superwoman ;-) I guess the same thought occurred to the thousands of customers who bought  and used respective products back in the day without noticing any of the promised results in the testosterone, strength and mass department they were looking for.

How come? I mean why did it not work. Let me think: Ok, Superman is strong, but boron he is without having to resort to boron. In fact, the next best thing to boron would be Kryptonite and that has the opposite effect. Ah, complicated... Maybe we have just been looking for the wrong results? I mean, according to more recent papers and the latest paper by scientists from the Ismail Kucukkurt at the Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Afyon Kocatepe University in Afyonkarahisar, Turkey (Kucukkurt. 2013), it would have been more prudent to take a closer look at (a) bone strength (e.g. Hakki. 2012) and (b) body fat percentage, or at least basal metabolic rate than muscle mass and strength after supplementing with boron... so let's stop kidding around and take a look at the latest scientific evidence.

So did we actually just look for results in the wrong place?

If you do have thyroid problems, you may be interested in reading my previous post about a study on what you'd call "dietary thyroid treatment" hypothyroid children (read more)

For their experiment, Ismael Kucukkurt and his colleagues had bought 30 male Sprague-Dawley rats, divided them into three groups and fed them diets containing either

• control diet: the standard amount of boron, 6.4mg/kg
• boric acid diet: std. diet + 100mg boron /kg of the diet, or
• borax diet: std. diet + 100mg borax /kg of the diet

Borax is sodium borate a mineral salt of boron which is by the way a non-FDA approved (high amounts are thought to be hepatoxic) food additive (E285) that's used to either as a preservant or a cooking agents that improves the texture of the food.

In previous studies boron supplementation had been found to exert negative effects on the T3 level of pigs, but in view of the scarce evidence, Kucukkurt et al. had decided to repeat the experiment in order to

 "investigate the effects of different B compounds, boric acid and borax diet supplementation on hormonal status (lep-tin, insulin, T3, and T4) and some biochemical factors (carnitine, nonesterified fatty acids (NEFAs), betahy-droxybutyric acid (BHBA), and glucose) in rats" (Kucukkurt. 2013)

What the researchers found was quite the opposite of what you would have expected based on the previous studies by Armstrong et al. (2001) and confirmed previous results by Yazici et al. (2008), who had found a statistically significant normalization (level went back up) of the leptin levels of previously ovariectomized and acutely trained (swimming to exhaustion) rats.

Figure 1: Effects of 4 weeks on chow with additional 100mg/kg of boric acid or borax on serum levels of leptin, insulin, T3, T4, carnitine, NEFA, betahydroxybutyric acid (BHBA) and glucose (Kucukkurt. 2013)

It's not difficult to judge by looking at figure 1 that the effects were overall highly beneficial - at least in view of the current diabetes, but also low thyroid epidemic we are facing. A radical increase in insulin sensitivity and glucose management in the borax group despite the fact that the control group was (a) boron sufficient* and (b) neither obese nor fed on a high fat diet are certainly impressive. Coupled with the increase in T3 production, this could come handy to anyone regardless of whether it's your obese neighbor.

Since there is no RDA, I can only tell you that most sources specifiy the upper tolerable level at 20mg/per day (for an adult). And where can you find it? Nuts are probably the best source: Almonds 2.8mg, hazelnuts 2.77mg, walnuts 1.63mg, , cashews 1.15mg. Other good sources are raisins w/ 4.51mg and prunes, dates & beans with 1-1.5mg (all per 100g)

A word on "boron sufficiency": If we are honest with ourselves, we have no idea how much boron rodents let alone humans actually need to function properly. Yeah, there are a couple of studies showing that very low levels produce all sorts of nasty side effects. In humans there are claims of increased magnesium and calcium requirements, decreased bone density and a greater risk for prostate. On the toxicity side of things, on the other hand, you will find, nasty stuff like symptoms similar vitamin B6 and B2 deficiencies, skeletal abnormalities, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, anemia, dermatitis, ovarian / testicular abnormalities, edema, seizures, gastrointestinal disturbances, fatigue and cold-like symptoms.

Since boron is a naturally occurring trace mineral you will find it in all sorts of whole foods, ranging from nuts(almonds, walnuts) over avocados, broccoli and potatoes to pears, prunes, honey, oranges, onions, chick peas, carrots, beans, bananas, red grapes, red apples and raisins (please note, these are mostly unverified facts I briefly collected on several major Internet health portals).

The keto-heads out there will probably be happy to see the increase in betahydroxybutyric acid, one of the ketone bodies and a clear sign that the improved glucose metabolism in the borax group in particular was partly driven by an increased fatty acid oxidation or, as some people would have it, "fat adaptation" (please mind that this took place on the regular ultra-high carb very low fat chow). It should be mentioned though that these changes, just like the changes in leptin did not reach statistical significance (I marked all that did with an arrow in figure 1).

And what about the body composition did they become lean and ripped?

Figure 2: Even if this (corrected) data is accurate, it does not tell us anything about the body composition of the animals and this irrelevant for us, anyways (diverts from Kucukkurt. 2013).

As far as the body weight of the rodents is concerned, I am not sure what to make of the data, not just because there is no quantitative analysis of body fat vs. lean mass, but also due to the fact that the original graph in the study suggests that all groups lost weight in the course of the study. My gut feeling,however - and that would be in line with the what the scientists actually write in the result section, namely

"Body weight levels of rats were lower (p< 0.05) in the boric acid than in the control and borax groups at the 3rd and 4th weeks (Figure 1). In boric acid group, body weight of rats was decreased 12%at the end of experimental period." (Kucukkurt. 2013)

- tells me that the scientists accidentally reversed the weeks, when they tried to plot the data. My very own plot in figure 2 is therefore a (hopefully) corrected version of the original, which - you will have to agree on that - was in conflict with both common sense (all rodents losing weight?) and the afore cited statement that the boric acid group was the lightest at the end of the study. I mean reversing the graph would mean week 1 would be week 4 and that in turn would indicate that the body weight of all rodents would have been virtually identical at the end of the study period, which is obviously false... right?

High dose Boron damages sperm and testes and causes infertility: Just in case you are (even reading about the Armstrong study and the decrease in T3 in swine) still considering taking copious amounts of boron, or - in the even worse case - you still believe it will improve your T levels and thus help you build muscle, you may want to take a look at the latest rodent data from Egypt (El-Dakdoky. 2013). In their paper, which has just been published in Toxicology mechanisms and methods, the researcher report that a dose of 250mg/kg did in fact increase testosterone and even nitric oxide levels in male rodents. On the other hand, it did also lead to DNA fragmentation within the testes and decreased the rodents' chance of fathering healthy pubs. 500mg on the other hand lead to testicular atrophy, severe damage of spermatogenesis, spermiation failure and total infertility. I guess this should convince you to wait until we know where the margin between beneficial and detrimental lies in human beings, right?

So what? So let's assume some student assistants actually did the graphs for the study at hand and the rest of the study is correct, what do we make of these results now? Well, the first thing would be to make sure that we are not talking about additional 100mg/kg body weight of boric acid or borax, here. With an additional 100mg/kg chow, the rodents did consume 1538% more boron than their peers and a human equivalent of roughly roughly 1.62mg/kg. Now this calculation does not only assume that the rats in the boron group had normal appetite(the food intake was not given in the study text, so I just went by an average for adult rats), it also goes to show you that with ~100-160mg/day you would end up consuming WAY more than upper tolerable levels. Bottom line: Nothing even remotely consider taking as a supplement before we know more about the effects ...

I know you are just checking where you can get, so let me phrase it like this: Humans and swine are in many ways a better model for the human metabolism than rats and what Armstrong observed in a group of fifty weaning young pigs were reductions in serum T3, as well as increases in cholesterol and alkaline phosphatase (Armstrong. 2001). I hope that brings you back to reason and has you cancel any order you may just have placed. At least for so long until your favorite nutrition & exercise science site (I don't have to mention that this is the SuppVersity, right?) carries the next study on boron that will hopefully shed some more light on how much we need, how much of it is good for us and in which amounts it's getting toxic.

References:

• Armstrong TA, Spears JW, Lloyd KE. Inflammatory response, growth, and thyroid hormone concentrations are affected by long-term boron supplementation in gilts. J Anim Sci. 2001 Jun;79(6):1549-56. 
• El-Dakdoky MH, Abd El-Wahab HM. Impact of boric acid exposure at different concentrations on testicular DNA and male rats fertility. Toxicol Mech Methods. 2013 Jan 10.
• Ghanizadeh G, Babaei M, Naghii MR, Mofid M, Torkaman G, Hedayati M. The effect of supplementation of calcium, vitamin D, boron, and increased fluoride intake on bone mechanical properties and metabolic hormones in rat. Toxicol Ind Health. 2012 Jul 10.
• Hakki SS, Dundar N, Kayis SA, Hakki EE, Hamurcu M, Kerimoglu U, Baspinar N, Basoglu A, Nielsen FH. Boron enhances strength and alters mineral composition of bone in rabbits fed a high energy diet. J Trace Elem Med Biol. 2012 Aug 31.
• Kucukkurt I, Akbel E, Karabag F, Ince S. The effects of dietary boron compounds in supplemented diet on hormonal activity and some biochemical parameters in rats. Toxicol Ind Health. 2013 Jan 4.

New Study Says: Boron Does Indeed Raise Free Testosterone

There have been rumors on the Internet for quite some time - "Did you hear? Boron increases testosterone!" Hitherto, however, these claims have not been substantiated by reliable scientific research. A recent study done by a group of scientists from Iran (Naghii. 2010) yet seems to prove that this is more than the steroid-loaden phantasy of an average gymrat.

In a placebo controlled study, the scientists found that supplementation with 10mg Boron/day did not only lower SHGB and thus raise testosterone, it did also lower three inflammatory biomarkers (Interleukin-6 (IL-6), high sensitive CRP (hsCRP) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α)):

Table1: Hormones and inflammatory biomarkers concentration (mean ± SD) plus hormone ratios following consumption of placebo (day 0) and weekly boron supplementation (day 7)

As you can see in table 1, the testosterone to estrogen ratio more than doubled (0.31 to 0.67). This alone makes me believe that it won't take too long for supp companies to notice this little trace mineral and to include it in more and more of their products. Hitherto it is already found in some formulations, like multi-vitamins, meal replacements and other stuff that is enriched with minerals the dosages, however, are minuscule and far from the 10mg used in the present study.

The scientists also investigated the time-course of the effect of boron supplementation on day 1 of the study and interestingly it took only 6 hours for free testosterone to rise from 8.55pg/ml to 11.25pg/ml. To me, this suggests that there is more to boron supplementation than just repleting exhausted blood and/or tissue levels.

Update: I have been digging a little into the possible mechanism of action behind the increase in testosterone and my personal take it that boron is a (weak) anti-estrogen. By cutting estrogen by 50% (cf. table 1) your body will automatically reduce SHGB, which is up-regulated by estrogen. This frees testosterone and may in fact provide (minor) benefits in muscle gain, libido & fat loss. I suspect that in the end this could be related to a reduction in manganese and an increase in magnesium & calcium retention (cf. Acu-Cell information about boron) that follows the administration of large amounts of boron. These is highly speculative and may only be part of the picture, though.
Also, in view of conflicting evidence from previous studies (e.g. Nagghi. 2006), which found that supplemental boron increased (not decreased) estrogen in men, further investigations are warranted.