Remedy Eating Green Tea Leaves, Coffee Beans?
Hi Ted. I have so enjoyed your notes on earthclinic over the years, and I'd appreciate some feedback about eating green tea. Here's my story and the reason why I'm looking for feedback:
I've had ulcerative colitis for over a decade. Hospitalized twice. Spent over $20,000 on natural remedies and supplements. I have typically treated it with L-glutamine and avoiding caffeine. But, I've had more diarrhea the last few years....scar tissue? Two months ago I started taking a popular chlorophyll juice. About 1/2 inch in the bottom of a glass full of water right before bed. Wow! The first glass cleaned me out. But only the first glass... I then had half the normal trips to the bathroom!
I then somehow got turned on to cinnamon. Started taking two teaspoons a day. Wow!! For the first time in a decade I was getting solid/formed bowel movements!! But, I still had emergencies... Then, somehow, three days ago, I had this random thought: "If I cook veggies and drink only the juice, throwing the cooked veggies away, then I'm throwing away most of the nutrients. So, what about coffee and tea? Does brewing these things take them out of their natural nutritional balance???"
See, I love coffee and tea.....but they clean me out!! Had tea just last week and spent considerable time in the bathroom! Why does it do that? Is it the caffeine? I thought "What if I ate the ground beans instead of brewing them?!?" I concluded that if coffee caused irritation because only some nutrients were in the brew, then maybe there were actually nutrients in the grounds that balanced the coffee and stopped the irritation? Soooo, I ate one teaspoon of raw grounds. The result? Zero irritation! I felt great and had the calmest bowel in years! The next day I did a whole tablespoon of grounds. Again--perfect.
So, yesterday, I decided to try green tea. I cut open two bags and ate the tea raw. About 30 minutes later I had not only an increase in alertness but also a huge self confidence that lasted over 10 hours. I was still wide awake after a full days work! Typically, two bags of brewed tea sends me to the bathroom for about an hour.... Not this time.
Today, I repeated the experiment eating three teabags. Result? The calmest bowel I ever remember having. No irritation. No urge. No negative whatsoever. So Ted, the conundrum I'm having is that there is a bunch of misinformation on the Web about eating regular tea. Some people say that it isn't safe and should be brewed... Other people call it dung and that you should only eat whole leaves.... Still, other people say that if eating tea had benefits, then the Chinese would have never started brewing it... I don't know. All I know is that in 14 years, taking all the best supplements, reading all the research, etc... that NOTHING has had the impact on my body that eating coffee and tea has had these last four days! Yes, the chlorophyll and cinnamon have no doubt contributed......
I'm just speechless... because I can't drink coffee and tea.... but I can eat them??? Thank you for commenting on this!
Spokane Valley, Wa, Usa
05/31/2012
Hi Ted and all on Earth Clinic, So, I thought I found something great when I originally sent through this post on eating green tea.
I ended up having a great month with virtually no symptoms. But, one day I forgot my green tea and went about the day.... only to find a massive amount of blood and diarrhea.
Turns out, the tannins in the green tea as AMAZING for masking the symptoms of UC.... But the caffeine was actually making it worse. (My success with the green tea led me to taking green tea extracts for energy and that put me in a flare.)
Just got out of the hospital a few days back, and what I've learned over the last two months is:
Decaf green tea is great. The organic decaf uses carbon dioxide to decaf the tea without really decreasing the tannin content.
Limit fat intake to less than 30 grams MAX per day.
I'd love to comment more about a bunch of stuff. But, if you're reading this, just know that decaf organic green tea and eliminating fat does some amazing stuff for UC.
Anyway, hope that helps.
Well, the cure is possible and I found those that helped. You have to understand there are basically two aspects of ulcerative colitis., the cause is mostly mycobacterium, which gives rise (after they are killed or living) to lipopolysaccharides. The lipopolysaccharides cause the inflammation which causes ulcerative colitis, but the mycobacterium also causes them.
As for the green tea it contains tannic acid, and most of it is on the leaf, some is in the liquid, that is why green tea you have to prepare it yourself, with the green tea leaves. In fact most of my remedies require that any herbs or any tea, you must consume the powder of the leaves and nothing is thrown away. You also get the same results (approximately) if you also consume tannic acid. Basically its the tannic acid that kills the mycobacterium in general, and some of the polysaccharides, but definitely doesn't really speed the healing process in the regeneration of tissues cells at all, but it does reduce the inflammation on the intestinal tract. Any nurse or doctors will tell you that if you have diarrhea, always take the green tea (especially eating leafs) or Coke (it contains caffeine. So it was both the green tea and the caffeine that actually helped, especially the alertness definitely comes from the caffeine. But it may help some people and it may hurt some people on caffeine due to differences in biochemical imbalances that exist in the body. As you go through the "general" green tea with different applications, you get different aspects and therefore some of the conflicting information, even different brands, but if you are dealing with ulcerative colitis then green tea helps in case the person has constipation, though that seems to occur more in Crohn's disease then anything else.
As to the coffee, in Thailand we drink green coffee, it has less or no carcinogens, but once you roast a coffee, then you get hydrocarbons, and you don't want that, because people with this condition are vulnerable to colon cancer.
As to your being helped glutamine is correct, it does help the healing but the bacterium of mycobacterium has to be rid of it or lessened, and you must have normal blood sugar to begin with as glutamine helps the healing. But it will always be the lysine and N acetyl cysteine to help the healing. To kill these mycobacterium is cinnamon, but they caused irritation and this is why lowering the inflammation initially will help. Boswellic acid will kill them too, but without the inflammation. So someone with abnormal blood sugar above 100 mg,/dL might require more, such as gymnema slyvestre. But someone with serious bleeding probably going to need less humic acid, but more vitamin K1 and K2, but also aloe vera oil. And someone who is seriously weakened will need more N acetyl cysteine, selenium, and a shot of B12. You have to really understand that most people who do have ulcerative colitus has a serious deficient vitamin K, this pattern of vitamin K has been deficient in human diets for the last 100 years, and making it worse, with margarine. Under no conditions are these people allowed to eat vegetable oils and margarine, it will lead a person to a hospital just taking plenty of potato chips and french fries!
But you always need DHEA 200 mg and melatonin at night at least 10 mg to help treat the inflammation and also some killing of mycobacterium, DHEA actually increases immune system indirectly, as does Lysine, the white blood cells, but inflammation is absolutely essential.
As to the greens, copper chlorophyllin, chlorella. and perhaps spirulina also help but very differently in ulcerative colitis. Copper chlorophyllin works as copper is toxic to most mycobacterium, but then so do MSM. Chlorella works by getting rid of excess heavy metals as they are required for mycobacterium growth (as do virus!) so they ultimately performed recycling work, but you can die prematurely if they overtake the body as there is some signs of decaying within the body! Spirulina works similar to chlorella although I think less aggressively then chlorella.
So yes it is a matter of time to cure ulcerative colitis, first the cause (mycobacterium), second the leftovers (lipopolysaccharides), third the healing of ulcerative colitis. The immune system can "see" the mycobacterium, with astralagus, DHEA, melatonin, in different aspects of the immune systems too long to discuss. The lipopolysaccharides can be broke to pieces to neutralize, such as bromelain, digestive enzymes. The mycobacterium may be destroyed with cinnamon. cinnamic aldehyde (less extent), ellagic acid, tannic acid, green tea, humic acid also. The aloe helps accelerated healing of the intestinal tract, but also glutamine, but mostly the lysine, glycine and vitamin C (major components of collagen). The glutamine also helps, but some BCAA (branched chain amino acid also). My simple method is basically humic acid, aloe vera oil and lysine as the major elements, but depending upon my clients I can have hundreds of variations, but it rest on the understanding, and then developing the strategies to cure ulcerative colitis.
Any way this is my latest information so far on ulcerative colitis, as time will permit. So what I have found is basically the same as what you found, both coffee and tea.
Ted