I feel like I should pass this around to my friends who live on sweet tea.

So the British Empire was built on rheumatoid arthritis?

/semi-obscure

it's lupus

This is bad news for me. =(

Too bad the tea only works when used as an enema.

GAT_00: I feel like I should pass this around to my friends who live on sweet tea.

I was raised on sweet iced tea during the summer and hot tea during the winter.

I'm so boned, as is my mother.

Then again, my grandfather had rheumatoid issues and he never drank tea.

Way to adjust for type of tea, quality of tea and method of preparation there.

/fear mongering article is full of fail.

shiat--I drink a couple of gallons of tea a week. And it's supposed to be an agent in causing kidney stones, too.

Looks like I'm going to have to learn to stomach coffee. Yecch.

If this was true everybody in China and Japan would have had rheumatoid arthritis.

It from holding their pinkies up in the air for long periods of time.

European League Against Rheumatism

Sounds like a low level superhero group. Like the Justice Society, but with a much narrower focus.

What kind of tea you morons??? Gah, what an informative article.

This is clearly an attempt to smear people who believe they are taxed enough already. The constant barrage of anti-Tea party mockery knows no end.

But doesn't Tea help reduce chance for bowel cancer and dementia?
arrghhhh.
Half tea/half coffee mixes?

jingks: It from holding their pinkies up in the air for long periods of time.

heh

cuzsis: Way to adjust for type of tea, quality of tea and method of preparation there.

/fear mongering article is full of fail.

Yeah, that's a really good point. TFA indicates they tried to screen for as many variables as they could think of, but says nothing about variations in tea itself, or the preparation thereof. For all we know, it will later turn out that the tiny staples in the bags are responsible. Or maybe caffeine is responsible, and coffee contains some factor that counteracts this particular effect. Or maybe there's a genetic factor that provides both a preference for tea and greater susceptibility to RA. Or, those who abhor coffee lack a protective factor. Or maybe it's got to do with how tea behaves when heated, so people who drink refrigerator tea aren't at risk. Many, many things to consider.

Tea is the most popular drink in the world after water. Yet I don't recall hearing that the world's been swept by a global epidemic of RA since thousands of years ago, or even recently. I'm confident the results of the study are sound, but I feel there must be more to this.

CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.

let me say that again for you:

CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.
CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.
CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.
CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.
CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.

For all we know people who are more prone to developing arthritis are also prone to liking tea (maybe for its anti-inflammatory properties?). I hate news stories that gloss over the fact that a statistical analysis does not say anything about why a relationship exists. They just start theorizing and immediately jump to a casual relationship.

BLEH!

/CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.

TRIGONALMAYHEM: CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.

You cannot have causation without strong correlation.

And this is another reason why I don't listen to any of this bullshiat.

Gah, a causal relationship, not a casual one. Drinking tea and arthritis are not FWB.

Sylvia_Bandersnatch: cuzsis: Way to adjust for type of tea, quality of tea and method of preparation there.

/fear mongering article is full of fail.

Yeah, that's a really good point. TFA indicates they tried to screen for as many variables as they could think of, but says nothing about variations in tea itself, or the preparation thereof. For all we know, it will later turn out that the tiny staples in the bags are responsible. Or maybe caffeine is responsible, and coffee contains some factor that counteracts this particular effect. Or maybe there's a genetic factor that provides both a preference for tea and greater susceptibility to RA. Or, those who abhor coffee lack a protective factor. Or maybe it's got to do with how tea behaves when heated, so people who drink refrigerator tea aren't at risk. Many, many things to consider.

Tea is the most popular drink in the world after water. Yet I don't recall hearing that the world's been swept by a global epidemic of RA since thousands of years ago, or even recently. I'm confident the results of the study are sound, but I feel there must be more to this.

This.

I'm not going to say they didn't actually find a difference. But without those questions answered, the information itself does us no good, since there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to the contrary and people really really like tea.

They aren't going to switch unless you've got a really solid (detail oriented) story going.

This is the crap "science" that America puts out these days thanks to anti-science fundie right-wingers.

Looks like you're going to have to pry my mug of brick red Assam out of my cold, gnarled claw.

BadAnalogyGuy: TRIGONALMAYHEM: CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.

You cannot have causation without strong correlation.

(A -> B) (~B -> ~A)
but!
(A -> B) (B -> A)

ok?

oh hell, it ate my arrows as HTML.

I have about 20 cups of green/white tea a day. Am I going to f*cking die now?

TRIGONALMAYHEM: BadAnalogyGuy: TRIGONALMAYHEM: CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.

You cannot have causation without strong correlation.

(A -> B) <--> (~B -> ~A)
but!
(A -> B) <-/-> (B -> A)

ok?

there

TRIGONALMAYHEM:
(A -> B) (~B -> ~A)
but!
(A -> B) (B -> A)

ok?

Are you drawing ascii penises at me?

TRIGONALMAYHEM: oh hell, it ate my arrows as HTML.

Correlation does not equal causation.

BadAnalogyGuy:
Are you drawing ascii penises at me?

8==========D ~~~

This site gets weirder by the hour.

instead of trying and failing to make more logic statements, I'll just link this instead.

As someone who has arthritis since eleven and drinks tea, I'm getting a kick *Argh!* out of these replies.

FTA:
But drinking any amount of tea increased the chance by 40%, compared with people who never drank tea.

but lets look at its prevalence. According to here, the prevalence of RA is only 1-2% in healthy people.

So what, drinking tea increases you risk by .4%?
And over what duration? Fk, if drinking tea is pleasurable to me and has short term benefits such as improved alertness and long-term ones such as anti-oxidant activity then I truly could care less even if this research is true coz - guess what? I can probably do alot more to offset that .4% risk by living a HEALTHY FARKING LIFESTYLE

I'm farked. I can't be any more farked. I'm a chronic tea drinker. It's the only caffeine I ever get, actually. Mostly I drink loose green, but occasionally bagged Bigelow tea.

I don't drink soda. I don't drink coffee. I don't touch alcohol. I'm just a tea drinker. And I'm so farked.

/aaaugh
//seriously there's a mug of tea in front of me right now

rynthetyn: But they told us green tea was good for us because of the antioxidants.

Make up your minds, people.

Actually technically, its not a contradiction. Tea, specifically green tea, but black to some extent, is also supposed to boost your immune system. Since rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune, i.e. your immune system going ape shiat and attacking you, with a boosted immune system its theoretically possible for it to get "too boosted". OTOH, there is not really much information in the article, so I would treat it as the old: eggs are bad for you, no wait they are good, no they are bad for you type of shiat.

Hmm according to here: Link (new window) the opposite is true.

I suspect this is how that news article came about:

BadAnalogyGuy: TRIGONALMAYHEM: CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION.

You cannot have causation without strong correlation.

_________________

Yeah well, I can perfectly predict daylight. It is not just strongly correlated, but perfectly correlated with night time lagged by 12 hours.

So, night must cause daylight right?

Seth'n'Spectrum: So the British Empire was built on rheumatoid arthritis?

/semi-obscure

And I'm not going to war without a cup of rheumatoid arthritis?

And folks, what is the secret ingredient in tea that causes arthritis?

FLUORIDE

Fluoride softens the bones by converting the bone's calcium hydroxyapatite into calcium fluoride which is then flushed out of the body. It hardens the tendons making them brittle and painful to flex.

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/phytochemicals/tea/ (new window)

Fluoride

Tea plants accumulate fluoride in their leaves. In general, the oldest tea leaves contain the most fluoride (9). Most high quality teas are made from the bud or the first two to four leaves-the youngest leaves on the plant. Brick tea, a lower quality tea, is made from the oldest tea leaves and is often very high in fluoride. Symptoms of fluoride excess (i.e., dental and skeletal fluorosis) have been observed in Tibetan children and adults who consume large amounts of brick tea (10, 11). Unlike brick tea, fluoride levels in green, oolong, and black teas are generally comparable to those recommended for the prevention of dental caries (cavities). Thus, daily consumption of up to one liter of green, oolong, or black tea would be unlikely to result in fluoride intakes higher than those recommended for dental health (12, 13). The fluoride content of white tea is likely to be less than other teas, since white teas are made from the buds and youngest leaves of the tea plant. The fluoride contents of 17 brands of green, oolong, and black teas is presented in the table below (12). These values do not include the fluoride content of the water used to make the tea. For more information, see the separate article on Fluoride.

Well, poo.

My 8 y.o. son has juvenile arthritis and after water, tea is a favourite drink.

Poor lil bugger can't have so much already, now they wanna take tea off him?

Well, poo.

However, if you mix tiny amounts of liquid iodine into the tea, the iodine will combine with the fluoride to form iodine fluoride compounds (not the healthiest to ingest, but better than straight fluoride poisoning).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine_pentafluoride (new window)
Iodine pentafluoride is a strong fluorination agent and is highly oxidative. It reacts vigorously with water forming hydrofluoric acid.

Primary amines react with iodine pentafluoride forming nitriles after hydrolysis with water

=======

Dr. David Derry Answers Reader Questions
http://thyroid.about.com/library/derry/bl7.htm (new window)

Topic: Green Tea and Fluoride

A Reader Writes:

"I have been reading that green tea contains toxic levels of fluoride. Do you agree with this?"

David Derry Responds:

Dear Patient

Although, we do have fluoride in our bodies there is no normal physiological function for it. In higher amounts it is toxic. Iodine is the most important element in our bodies by far. But what is important is fluoride is in the same chemical family as iodine and can replace iodine in the body if the iodine is deficient. But ideally one never wants to do that as fluoride is a toxin and should not be used to replace normal iodine functions. Our main source of iodine in the Western societies is iodized table salt. When we cut back our intake of salt we are in fact depriving ourselves of the much needed daily intake of iodine. This has lead to a significant decrease in the iodine intake of Western societies,(1-4)and iodine deficiency is starting to show up in children as well as adults.(5)

Some countries are fluoridating their water supply for the theoretical benefits of fluoride helping to prevent cavities. What is happening is the ingested fluoride takes the place of iodine that should be there in the teeth, especially growing teeth. Iodine and thyroid for example have complete control of tooth growth along with some help from growth hormone. (6-8) It is only because our iodine intake has been decreasing over the years that fluoride has been mistakenly added to our water with the idea of helping children's teeth. It would have made more scientific sense to have added more iodine. Monitoring of the results of fluoridation and iodine intake have not been consistent. As one would expect there are lots of publications now about the problems with too much fluoride.

Fluoride has also been used against osteoporosis with beneficial results. This again is just replacing what iodine should be doing. The minor problems of osteopenia (minor loss of calcium) seen in some patients put on thyroid is related to the fact that the same patients are low in iodine. The low iodine causes the hypothyroidism and also the inappropriate short term bone response. If iodine is given with the thyroid hormone this abnormal response can be avoided. So persons taking adequate daily iodine will unlikely to ever develop osteoporosis.

The thyroid gland uses iodine to make thyroid hormone. We know the thyroid gland appeared in evolution at the same time as back bones (vertebrates). Radioactive iodine injected into patients shows a full outline of the bones on a total body scan. This means one of the places iodine goes to immediately is bones. Thyroid hormone makes bones grow, mature and remodel, when necessary. Together thyroid hormone, iodine and growth hormone maintain a healthy bone structure. As vertebrates (animals with backbones) are the only animals with thyroid glands it makes sense that iodine and thyroid control bone structure and function.(6-8)

So even though fluoridation might work in children it does not work in adults. Therefore adults using fluorinated tooth paste will unlikely see any benefit and may end up with signs of excess fluoride such as browning of the teeth. It does not make sense to substitute a toxin for the natural iodine that should be there. It would have been simpler and more effective if the iodine intake of children was raised. This would provide the needed iodine and make stronger thyroid glands.

Green tea is supposed to help prevent stomach cancer in China. But in fact the way to prevent stomach cancer is to take more iodine. (9) Thus the benefits of the Green tea may be related to the fluoride in the tea substituting for iodine. Iodine therapy would be more effective.

Fluoride huh?

What about

and

That Half Mango Tea is so hard to find. I've only seen them at two stores in Northern California. It's obnoxiously good, however.

As for the British folk and their rotting teeth, BLAME THE FLUORIDE IN BREWED TEA.

http://www.rense.com/general4/flu.htm (new window)
Schuld then reported on studies done in the 1930s by Floyd DeEds which reported clear results that dental fluorosis is a sign of thyroid dysfunction. According to Schuld, any anti-thyroid administered during the time of enamel formation will produce the effects seen in dental fluorosis, again citing DeEds and his work which shows how cadmium also caused mottled teeth.

Woodruff read from two separate studies by German dental researcher Kunzel (who is represented with 4 papers in the York Report) which showed how caries occurrence had dropped sharply after the cessation of water fluoridation, including a study done in Cuba as well as one from East Germany,where children enjoyed the greatest caries reduction in 40 years after the practice of fluoridation was halted. "Data from these cities are also in the York Report" said Schuld, "but this time misinterpreted to show a fluoridation benefit! This is an outrageous fraud."

"Fluorides actually cause cavities", said Schuld. "There are countless papers, some of them - again - also found in the York Report, which clearly state that the dental defects seen in fluorosis predispose to caries. Is this also a cosmetic concern only?"

// I keep telling the obvious truth and so few listen or even bother to do their own damned basic research.

Not that I have any dog in the fluoride fight, but who are you responding to?

BadAnalogyGuy: Not that I have any dog in the fluoride fight, but who are you responding to?

Not really a fight.
I post basic thyroid information about iodine and fluoride, soon the generic response will be a "Doctor Strangelove" movie reference. Idiots will laugh and their dippy lazy trance will continue for another hypothyroid day.

Tea by itself is harmless if grown in soil and water without fluoride compounds, but most teas have very high fluoride content and an overdose of an toxic halogen (small amounts of chlorine is needed for the immune system's white blood cells and iodine is required for normal thyroid function and proper bone growth/repair).

I'm not trying to evangelize anyone. Seriously. Hypothyroidism is a serious problem and appallingly common in most cities these days with the toxic fluoride "disposal of toxic waste by massive dilution" scheme. The first step in getting better is to know that something is actually wrong. Getting tested for HYPOTHYROIDISM is not hard to do and the media has not urged the general public to do so at all.

Since toxic fluoride causes a number of serious health issues, the key is to recognize it rather than listen to the media talking heads chortle and recommend useless treatments while ignoring the actual source of many illnesses.