Green Tea, Fluoride Reduce Thyroid Function By As Much As 50%

[haidut]

Is the fluoride from the water or the tea

Fluoride was given separately to compare effects of known thyroid inhibitors rather than mimic fluoride levels found in tea naturally.

 

[Bodhi]

Green Tea contains Fluoride it takes it up from the soil it grow's on...

Mate is not green tea, it is a different plant/herb with green tea/tea/coffee like qualities (the energizing part)

 

[jaguar43]

What would be interesting is to see how much of our food contains fluoride. Does anyone know if coca cola or other drinks/foods contain fluoride ?

 

[tara]

I think distilling removes flouride from water, right? I was distilling water for other reasons for a while.

We don't have flouride in the tap water locally, but it is in some areas, and there are discussion in the media from time to time. The main reason for it is that the dentists think it reduces the number of dental cavities, and they discredit or disregard all the evidence showing it to be harmful in other ways. They may be right that it reduces cavities statistically, though (even though some people get dental problems from flouride excess)?

 

[Bodhi]

Fluoride is a halogen it can "steal" a seat wich is reserved for a Iodine molecule...

This is the mechanism for why Fluoride is suppressing thyroid fuction...

Low thyroid has it's influence on parathyroid function, we all know that parathyroid is important for good calcium metabolism, if this is not going well your teeth will suffer some day...

 

[Makrosky]

Guys, there's many kinds of fluorine molecules. Sodium FLuorine is considered bad, but is the fluoride contained in green tea of this kind ? And also, how it does react with other variables like other tea compounds that might bind it, or the heat for preparing it, etc.

It's not that simple.

It reminds me a post I saw on Chris Kresser blog stating that mercury in fishes is a problem only if the selenium level of that fish is low. If there's a good ratio of selenium/mercury the selenium binds the mercury (with a very strong chemical bond btw) and it becomes harmless. The only "bad" thing is that you'll have less selenium for other uses but you won't get poisoned by the mercury. I hope this is true. Don't know if it's BS or not. But it somehow makes sense.

I'm not saying this is true or not, but it seems the same thing could be happening with Green Tea. For instance, how much iodine vs fluor there's in Green Tea ? We're talking about trace ammounts. Just giving an example.

 

[jyb]

Tea seems to reduce my libido for about 24 hours. If I drink some Mate, just one or two servings, the next day I have no interest in sex. I'm a male. Probably the estrogenic effect? Hard to know for sure but from I read Mate should have much much less fluoride and other contaminants than commercial green tea, so estrogen is my only explanation.

It is surprisingly powerful. But after experimenting with it on and off, this is what I must conclude. I doubt this happens to most people, only to a few like me where libido can go from healthy to blunted with just one serving of estrogenic stuff.

 

[montmorency]

The only way tap water gets into my body is through showering, and through my coffee drinking.

I guess I have been quite lazy in trying to find an alternative to tap water for the coffee. I went through a phase of trying to use boiled coconut water for my coffee instead, but the taste was beyond foul.

If any UK Peaters have a good source for water, hit me up. Or, if anybody has any other ideas?

You are in the UK, why do you assume your tap water has fluoride? This is not as prevalent as the US...

Hmmm. Not sure. I guess I have always assumed that the UK has as much fluoride as the US in its tap water. Why I have made that assumption is confusing, even to me. It would be brilliant if the tap water wasn't as bad as I'd originally thought. I should look into this really.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoridation_by_country

Seems that ~10% of the population is supplied with artificially fluoridated water in the UK, and in addition "about half a million people receive water that is naturally fluoridated with calcium fluoride, and about 6 million total receive fluoridated water". (I'm lucky that I don't live in a fluoridated area. However, I'm unlucky in that I like (black tea. In view of BurtLancaster's earlier post, perhaps I should re-think this ...).

@BobbyDukes in case it is of interest, I noticed a firm on Amazon UK marketplace supplying distilled water with next day delivery by courier. Not cheap, but might be the easiest way of getting hold of it. (Distilled water isn't as readily available in the Uk as it seems to be in the USA. Some car parts shops sell it for batteries, but presumably it is not guaranteed safe for human consumption).

 

[Parsifal]

Tap water has a lot of other halides in it that fluoride.

 

[jb116]

so what it's the mechanism by which catechins can help slim a person down? Or may be it isn't the catechins at all and its the caffeine. Either way, effects are most important and ncbi shows fat loss effects with this study, although LDL is affected too:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640470

 

[Parsifal]

post 99953 so what it's the mechanism by which catechins can help slim a person down? Or may be it isn't the catechins at all and its the caffeine. Either way, effects are most important and ncbi shows fat loss effects with this study, although LDL is affected too:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640470

Who knows, by raising stress hormones instead of thyroid hormones? Amphetamines can help to slim people as well. There are studies who says everything and its contrary, I almost don't believe in studies anymore. Personal experience and other trustable people's experience has a lot more value to me.

 

[jb116]

post 99960

post 99953 so what it's the mechanism by which catechins can help slim a person down? Or may be it isn't the catechins at all and its the caffeine. Either way, effects are most important and ncbi shows fat loss effects with this study, although LDL is affected too:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640470

Who knows, by raising stress hormones instead of thyroid hormones? Amphetamines can help to slim people as well. There are studies who says everything and its contrary, I almost don't believe in studies anymore. Personal experience and other trustable people's experience has a lot more value to me.

I don't disagree actually. I do wonder though about the mechanism, even putting aside the more obvious factors like stress hormones. Oh well, it most likely is just that since I did read several times about how catechins help the circulation of FFA's! - of course mainstream nutrition thinks this to be good. If that were it
that would most likely answer our question. However the other claims like reducing the risk of Alzheimer's, certain cancers, cardiovascular diseases still linger. BUT again these are just claims.

 

[Kray]

post 86926 TOP 10 WAYS TO REDUCE FLUORIDE EXPOSURE

Mas: Thanks for the great information on teas. I've researched this info for years, having been a heavy tea drinker before going to coffee. I still enjoy my teas in the winter, and iced in summer. I was trying to find something recent on white teas and their fluoride content and seemed to remember it was overall better than green/black on the fluoride and anti-oxidant scale. So this is encouraging. It is also a good reminder from "burtlancast" about the natural occurrence of fluoride in our food chain...

 

[Ideonaut]

fluoride causes hypothyroidism

I've always believed the people who said fluoride was and is fed to populations to passify and dumb them down--a totalitarian tactic--and thought the prevention of cavities line to be bull****. Okay, so it causes hypothyroidism too. Can i get it out of my system and how?

 

[Strongbad]

This is such a bummer because tea is full of theanine, and I'd rather ingest theanine via food rather than supplements.

Is there any peat-approved food that has lots of theanine other than tea?

 

[halken]

post 87386 Guys, there's many kinds of fluorine molecules. Sodium FLuorine is considered bad, but is the fluoride contained in green tea of this kind ? And also, how it does react with other variables like other tea compounds that might bind it, or the heat for preparing it, etc.

It's not that simple.

It reminds me a post I saw on Chris Kresser blog stating that mercury in fishes is a problem only if the selenium level of that fish is low. If there's a good ratio of selenium/mercury the selenium binds the mercury (with a very strong chemical bond btw) and it becomes harmless. The only "bad" thing is that you'll have less selenium for other uses but you won't get poisoned by the mercury. I hope this is true. Don't know if it's BS or not. But it somehow makes sense.

I'm not saying this is true or not, but it seems the same thing could be happening with Green Tea. For instance, how much iodine vs fluor there's in Green Tea ? We're talking about trace ammounts. Just giving an example.

Exactly.

Even in toxicity, it is better to work with ratios.

 

[Wilfrid]

I think species difference should be considered here. Rodents are highly sensitive to goitrogenic agents in comparison with humans.
Rats are lacking in high-affinity thyroxine-binding globulin which is present in humans and their plasma half-life of T4 (12-24 hours) is shorter than in humans (5-9 days).
Considering all the parameters, drinking eithet green or black tea should be safe.
And I think that's why Ray hasn't say anything in his book or articles regarding hypothyroidism and its relation to tea consumption.

 

[Travis]

I think species difference should be considered here. Rodents are highly sensitive to goitrogenic agents in comparison with humans.
Rats are lacking in high-affinity thyroxine-binding globulin which is present in humans and their plasma half-life of T4 (12-24 hours) is shorter than in humans (5-9 days).
Considering all the parameters, drinking eithet green or black tea should be safe.
And I think that's why Ray hasn't say anything in his book or articles regarding hypothyroidism and its relation to tea consumption.

This is true. I was actually going to post this exact same quote, taken from:

Satoh, K. "Inhibition of aromatase activity by green tea extract catechins and their endocrinological effects of oral administration in rats." Food and Chemical Toxicology (2002)​

'In comparison with humans, rodents are highly sensitive to goitrogenic treatment, because of a shorter plasma T₄ half-life (12–24 h) in rats than in humans (5–9 days), which derives from the absence of high-affinity thyroxine-binding globulin in rats that is present in humans.' ―Satoh​

Which is another bizarre synchronicity, which seems to happen more often than you'd expect from chance. But besides that, I did find some other good information:

There are scores of common polyphenols found in food, and they all are slightly different. Polyphenols are probably tested mostly on enzymes, more so than for their free radical absorption capacity. Different polyphenols inhibit different enzymes at different concentrations, and every fruit and plant has a characteristic polyphenol profile. Some plants—like tea and cranberries—have more polyphenols than most; and this fact coupled with the naturalistic biases of Asian and Indians—and general nationalistic pride—has led to a considerable pile of data on both tea and soy polyphenols. Tea polyphenols have been shown to powerfully inhibit catechol‐O‐methyltransferase and histidine decarboxylase, and less‐powerful inhibitory effects seen on aromatase—perhaps making this one anti‐estrogenic. But more on topic, the tea polyphenols most likely inhibit the enzyme thyroid peroxidase; this suspicion comes from the in vitro rat data as well as the fact it contains a resorcinol ring:

Divi, Rao L. "Inhibition of thyroid peroxidase by dietary flavonoids." Chemical research in toxicology (1996)​

Divi and Doerge had tested a few polyphenols on the enzyme tyroxine peroxidase, and they had found only those with a resorcinol ring were effective inhibitors. And in fact, previous studies have shown resorcinol itself can inhibit this enzyme. The general idea is that this ring acts similar to tyrosine, fits well in the binding site, and upon partial oxidation (− H·) forms a free radical which shifts along the ring in such a way as to react with part of the enzyme; forming a covalent bond.

​

This is one type of inhibition—the 'suicide inhibitor'—leads to a permanent inactivation of the enzyme, and this can be kinetically measured because this type of inhibition is time dependent (if an enzyme is inhibited the longer it is kept in contract with the polyphenol, or the effect is not reversed by dialysis, then the inhibitor is likely bound permanently to the enzyme.) Polyphenols of type which permanently inhibit include kaempferol, naringenin, and quercetin—but this is not the only type of inhibition. Most polyphenols act as a classic antogonists and simply displace tyrosine from the binding site, preventing iodination and thyroid hormone synthesis. The polyphenol biochanin represents a special case, as this one is actually iodinated:

​

The four main polyphenols found in tea are the resorcinol‐type, and hence would theoretically be suspected to act as inhibitors of thyroid peroxidase (a.k.a. tyrosine iodinase). The study in the original post on page 1 had used pure catechin, which is actually a fairly minor constituent of tea.⁽¹⁾ A more fair appraisal would have been done with an aqueous green tea extract, perhaps separated by chromatography to remove the fluoride ions—which can be a huge confounder since fluoride ions cause similar thyroid changes in rats.⁽²⁾

Fig. 3: Chromatogram showing catechin to be a minor constituent of tea infusion.​

Yet this has too been done: Similar results have been observed with a mix of epicatechin (8.5%), epigallocatechin (17.7%), epigallocatechin gallate (32.1%), epicatechin gallate (10.7%), gallocatechin gallate (3.3%) and catechin gallate (1.4%).⁽³⁾ So at least one of these tea catechins could be expected to be a 'suicide inhibitor' of tyrosine iodinase on the basis of its effects in rats and chemical structure. Since brewed tea also contains fluoride ions at ~3‧ppm, this actually makes tea überantithyroid. However, rats are particularly sensitive and these polyphenols can be conjugated in the liver.

'However, total EGC or EC consisted mostly of conjugated forms, whereas total EGCG was constituted mostly of the unchanged form.' ―Chow​

If these resorcinol‐polyphenols are sulfated in the #5 or #7 position, they would be expected to be thyroid‐inactive. Such metabolites have been found.

'Accordingly, we identified 3'-O-methyl-(-)-epicatechin-5-O-sulphate and 3'-O-methyl-(-)-epicatechin-7-O-sulphate as the main O-methyl-(-)-epicatechin-sulfates(-)-epicatechin metabolites in humans.' ―Actis-Goretta⁽⁴⁾​

Rats would be more sensitive to these thyroidal effects of the resorcinol‐type polyphenols, but there is little reason to think they would be more sensitive to fluoride. For this reason, I still think fluoride is the worst aspect of green tea and think perhaps anyone drinking tea should take boron—which is essentially the only antidote besides perhaps extra calcium (boron and fluoride ion create BF₃ in the plasma, which is then excreted.) And without knowing exactly how 'green tea extract' is made, I would be hesitant to take even that.

'The different mechanisms identified here for TPO inhibition do, however, suggest differences in the potential hazards to humans consuming these compounds. In vivo, flavonoids that are TPO suicide substrates are likely to exert a long-lasting depression of thyroid hormone synthesis because de novo enzyme synthesis is required to restore lost activity. However, the inhibitory effects of flavonoids that are alternate substrate iodination inhibitors would be attenuated by TPO-catalyzed iodination to inactive products, and the effects of reversibly binding inhibitors would be attenuated by extrathyroidal metabolism and excretion.' ―Divi​

But the purified polyphenols themselves may not be such a bad thing in humans, and could act to inhibit enzymes that we'd actually want inhibited (i.e. histidine decarboxylase; aromatase) if the proper ones are taken. I am ready to vilify tea—and throw it under the bus—after drinking the stuff I got in the mail for my birthday and then reading more about it, but I think enzyme inhibition events should be taken on a polyphenol‐to‐polyphenol basis. We eat polyphenols all the time; they are highly concentrated in berries and chocolate (i.e. quercitin). As far as I can tell by the binding data, only the soy polyphenols genestein and diadzein have particular affinity for the estrogen receptor—kaempferol coming in a distant third (found in strawberries).

There could be one tea polyphenol worth taking, if it could be separated from both F⁻ the others; but as a caffeinated drink I would place it below coffee and yerba mate. Coffee has an opiate antagonist formed upon roasting (caffeoly quinide) in addition to its high free radical absorption capacity. Yerba mate has caffeine and is much lower in fluoride, although there's probably a few unique molecules lurking in it that could be worth knowing more about.. .

[1] Sano, Mitsuaki. "Simultaneous determination of twelve tea catechins by high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection." Analyst (2001)
[2] Bouaziz, Hanen. "Fluoride-induced thyroid proliferative changes and their reversal in female mice and their pups." Fluoride (2005)
[3] Satoh, K. "Inhibition of aromatase activity by green tea extract catechins and their endocrinological effects of oral administration in rats." Food and Chemical Toxicology (2002)
[4] Actis-Goretta, Lucas. "Identification of O-methyl-(−)-epicatechin-O-sulphate metabolites by mass-spectrometry after O-methylation with trimethylsilyldiazomethane." Journal of Chromatography A (2012)
[5] Chow. "Phase I pharmacokinetic study of tea polyphenols following single-dose administration of epigallocatechin gallate and polyphenon E." Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention Biomarkers (2001)​

 

[Wilfrid]

This is true. I was actually going to post this exact same quote, taken from:

Satoh, K. "Inhibition of aromatase activity by green tea extract catechins and their endocrinological effects of oral administration in rats." Food and Chemical Toxicology (2002)​

'In comparison with humans, rodents are highly sensitive to goitrogenic treatment, because of a shorter plasma T₄ half-life (12–24 h) in rats than in humans (5–9 days), which derives from the absence of high-affinity thyroxine-binding globulin in rats that is present in humans.' ―Satoh​

Which is another bizarre synchronicity, which seems to happen more often than you'd expect from chance. But besides that, I did find some other good information:

There are scores of common polyphenols found in food, and they all are slightly different. Polyphenols are probably tested mostly on enzymes, more so than for their free radical absorption capacity. Different polyphenols inhibit different enzymes at different concentrations, and every fruit and plant has a characteristic polyphenol profile. Some plants—like tea and cranberries—have more polyphenols than most; and this fact coupled with the naturalistic biases of Asian and Indians—and general nationalistic pride—has led to a considerable pile of data on both tea and soy polyphenols. Tea polyphenols have been shown to powerfully inhibit catechol‐O‐methyltransferase and histidine decarboxylase, and less‐powerful inhibitory effects seen on aromatase—perhaps making this one anti‐estrogenic. But more on topic, the tea polyphenols most likely inhibit the enzyme thyroid peroxidase; this suspicion comes from the in vitro rat data as well as the fact it contains a resorcinol ring:

Divi, Rao L. "Inhibition of thyroid peroxidase by dietary flavonoids." Chemical research in toxicology (1996)​

Divi and Doerge had tested a few polyphenols on the enzyme tyroxine peroxidase, and they had found only those with a resorcinol ring were effective inhibitors. And in fact, previous studies have shown resorcinol itself can inhibit this enzyme. The general idea is that this ring acts similar to tyrosine, fits well in the binding site, and upon partial oxidation (− H·) forms a free radical which shifts along the ring in such a way as to react with part of the enzyme; forming a covalent bond.

View attachment 8112 ​

This is one type of inhibition—the 'suicide inhibitor'—leads to a permanent inactivation of the enzyme, and this can be kinetically measured because this type of inhibition is time dependent (if an enzyme is inhibited the longer it is kept in contract with the polyphenol, or the effect is not reversed by dialysis, then the inhibitor is likely bound permanently to the enzyme.) Polyphenols of type which permanently inhibit include kaempferol, naringenin, and quercetin—but this is not the only type of inhibition. Most polyphenols act as a classic antogonists and simply displace tyrosine from the binding site, preventing iodination and thyroid hormone synthesis. The polyphenol biochanin represents a special case, as this one is actually iodinated:

View attachment 8113 ​

The four main polyphenols found in tea are the resorcinol‐type, and hence would theoretically be suspected to act as inhibitors of thyroid peroxidase (a.k.a. tyrosine iodinase). The study in the original post on page 1 had used pure catechin, which is actually a fairly minor constituent of tea.⁽¹⁾ A more fair appraisal would have been done with an aqueous green tea extract, perhaps separated by chromatography to remove the fluoride ions—which can be a huge confounder since fluoride ions cause similar thyroid changes in rats.⁽²⁾

View attachment 8114
Fig. 3: Chromatogram showing catechin to be a minor constituent of tea infusion.​

Yet this has too been done: Similar results have been observed with a mix of epicatechin (8.5%), epigallocatechin (17.7%), epigallocatechin gallate (32.1%), epicatechin gallate (10.7%), gallocatechin gallate (3.3%) and catechin gallate (1.4%).⁽³⁾ So at least one of these tea catechins could be expected to be a 'suicide inhibitor' of tyrosine iodinase on the basis of its effects in rats and chemical structure. Since brewed tea also contains fluoride ions at ~3‧ppm, this actually makes tea überantithyroid. However, rats are particularly sensitive and these polyphenols can be conjugated in the liver.

'However, total EGC or EC consisted mostly of conjugated forms, whereas total EGCG was constituted mostly of the unchanged form.' ―Chow​

If these resorcinol‐polyphenols are sulfated in the #5 or #7 position, they would be expected to be thyroid‐inactive. Such metabolites have been found.

'Accordingly, we identified 3'-O-methyl-(-)-epicatechin-5-O-sulphate and 3'-O-methyl-(-)-epicatechin-7-O-sulphate as the main O-methyl-(-)-epicatechin-sulfates(-)-epicatechin metabolites in humans.' ―Actis-Goretta⁽⁴⁾​

Rats would be more sensitive to these thyroidal effects of the resorcinol‐type polyphenols, but there is little reason to think they would be more sensitive to fluoride. For this reason, I still think fluoride is the worst aspect of green tea and think perhaps anyone drinking tea should take boron—which is essentially the only antidote besides perhaps extra calcium (boron and fluoride ion create BF₃ in the plasma, which is then excreted.) And without knowing exactly how 'green tea extract' is made, I would be hesitant to take even that.

'The different mechanisms identified here for TPO inhibition do, however, suggest differences in the potential hazards to humans consuming these compounds. In vivo, flavonoids that are TPO suicide substrates are likely to exert a long-lasting depression of thyroid hormone synthesis because de novo enzyme synthesis is required to restore lost activity. However, the inhibitory effects of flavonoids that are alternate substrate iodination inhibitors would be attenuated by TPO-catalyzed iodination to inactive products, and the effects of reversibly binding inhibitors would be attenuated by extrathyroidal metabolism and excretion.' ―Divi​

But the purified polyphenols themselves may not be such a bad thing in humans, and could act to inhibit enzymes that we'd actually want inhibited (i.e. histidine decarboxylase; aromatase) if the proper ones are taken. I am ready to vilify tea—and throw it under the bus—after drinking the stuff I got in the mail for my birthday and then reading more about it, but I think enzyme inhibition events should be taken on a polyphenol‐to‐polyphenol basis. We eat polyphenols all the time; they are highly concentrated in berries and chocolate (i.e. quercitin). As far as I can tell by the binding data, only the soy polyphenols genestein and diadzein have particular affinity for the estrogen receptor—kaempferol coming in a distant third (found in strawberries).

There could be one tea polyphenol worth taking, if it could be separated from both F⁻ the others; but as a caffeinated drink I would place it below coffee and yerba mate. Coffee has an opiate antagonist formed upon roasting (caffeoly quinide) in addition to its high free radical absorption capacity. Yerba mate has caffeine and is much lower in fluoride, although there's probably a few unique molecules lurking in it that could be worth knowing more about.. .

[1] Sano, Mitsuaki. "Simultaneous determination of twelve tea catechins by high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection." Analyst (2001)
[2] Bouaziz, Hanen. "Fluoride-induced thyroid proliferative changes and their reversal in female mice and their pups." Fluoride (2005)
[3] Satoh, K. "Inhibition of aromatase activity by green tea extract catechins and their endocrinological effects of oral administration in rats." Food and Chemical Toxicology (2002)
[4] Actis-Goretta, Lucas. "Identification of O-methyl-(−)-epicatechin-O-sulphate metabolites by mass-spectrometry after O-methylation with trimethylsilyldiazomethane." Journal of Chromatography A (2012)
[5] Chow. "Phase I pharmacokinetic study of tea polyphenols following single-dose administration of epigallocatechin gallate and polyphenon E." Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention Biomarkers (2001)​

Hi Travis,

Thanks for those studies.
When it comes to compare between experimental ( focusing on thyroid ) results made on animals to humans, my main source of information is the review made by Choksi et al : "Role of Thyroid Hormones in Human and Laboratory Animal Reproductive Health. "
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/ohat/pubs/bdr_thyroid.pdf
Besides that, I have a great interest on the subject because I think that, more than often, we tend to forget about the differences between experimental animals and us. And I found the work done by Alain Reinberg unsurpassed in this field.

 

[SOMO]

I prefer green tea to coffee.

I love the Japanese green tea ceremonies, I think the green tea "buzz" is very different than coffee. I think green tea is more relaxing, likely due to L-Theanine.


Also if you get enough Iodine in your diet, you will DISPLACE/kick-out the Fluoride via Halogen Displacement.
Basically, the heavier Halogens kick out the lighter halogens, but you can load up on Iodine.
[media][/media]

Bromine also interferes with Thyroid (and I see BROMOcryptine recommended here), since it is a Halogen and in the same "family" of elements as Fluorine and Iodine.

But to do that efficiently, the person needs to ingest more Iodine than the other Halogens.


I think eating kelp and seaweed is all the iodine someone would need.
Unless I'm mistaken, you can't make T3 OR T4 without Iodine.