Table of contents:
- Taking medicine with warm tea is not recommended
- Medicines that should not be drunk with tea
- Blood pressure-lowering drugs
- Blood thinners
- Family planning pills
- Herbal remedies and supplements
Ideally, taking medication should be “rinsed” with a sip of plain water to maximize the drug's efficacy. But there are also some people who take medicine with warm tea, whether it's plain tea or sweet tea, to disguise the bitter sensation of the drug. However, is this method safe?
Taking medicine with warm tea is not recommended
Drinking medicine with tea can indeed help disguise the bitter taste of the medicine being consumed. Nevertheless, this is not recommended. There have been many doctors and hospitals that do not allow patients to take medicine with tea, let alone green tea.
In digestion, the caffeine compounds contained in tea can bind to medicinal chemicals, making the drug difficult to digest. The effect of drug interactions with caffeine can reduce the effectiveness of the drug in the body.
In addition, caffeine can easily stimulate the central nervous system, causing nervousness, upset stomach, difficulty concentrating, difficulty sleeping, increased heart rate, and increased blood pressure. This side effect of caffeine also further inhibits the drug from working effectively in the body to target the source of the disease.
A study from the National Institute of Health reports that drinking amphetamines, cocaine, or ephedrine with green tea can cause dangerous interactions for the body. The caffeine content in green tea (which is indeed higher than other types of tea), which interacts with this powerful drug substance, can make the heart beat faster, thereby increasing blood pressure.
Medicines that should not be drunk with tea
There are a number of common medicines in society that should not be drunk with tea, including:
Blood pressure-lowering drugs
According to one study quoted from the WebMD page, drinking green tea can reduce the benefits of nadolol, a blood pressure-lowering drug known as a beta blocker. The study involved 10 participants who were given a dose of 30 milligrams of nadolol, some participants drank it with plain water and some with green tea. This method was continued for 14 days to see the difference in the effect of green tea and water on nadolol.
After checking the blood nadolol levels at the end of the study, the results showed that the nadolol levels had seen a drastic drop of up to 76 percent in the group who drank green tea. Nadolol which is supposed to work by reducing the workload of the heart and blood pressure becomes obstructed due to the intake of green tea consumed simultaneously. This proves that green tea drastically reduces the effectiveness of the drug nadolol by interfering with the absorption of the drug in the intestine.
In addition to treating hypertension, green tea is not recommended to be taken together with weight loss drugs such as phenylpropanolamine. Because, this combination will cause a spike in blood pressure and the risk of bleeding in the brain. Because green tea tends to aggravate the liver, you are strongly discouraged from taking drugs that have adverse side effects on the liver, such as acetaminophen (paracetamol), phenytoin, methotrexate, and others.
Blood thinners
If you are taking blood thinners such as warfarin, ibuprofen, and aspirin, you should avoid green tea as a liquid. The reason is, green tea contains vitamin K which can reduce the effectiveness of aspirin performance. Green tea has a similar effect to blood thinners, so taking it together with these medications can increase the risk of bleeding.
Family planning pills
The caffeine content in tea is reported to decrease how birth control pills work in inhibiting the conception process. So, those of you who are regularly taking birth control pills as a means of contraception should not take them with tea. This condition also applies to antibiotics, lithium, adenosine, clozapine, and some other cancer drugs. This is because the substances in tea actually make bacteria in the body resistant to treatment.
Herbal remedies and supplements
Consumption of green tea as a "friend" taking supplements is also not recommended. This is because the caffeine content in it can reduce the absorption of iron and folic acid in the supplement. As a result, the benefits that should be obtained from supplements are in vain.
