Green tea supplements may cause liver damage

Madeline’s liver count was dangerously high after taking the pills

Madeline Papineau wanted to drop a few pounds to look good in her prom dress.

The 17-year-old, from Cornwall, Ontario, took a green tea extract promising to increase calorie burn as directed. But on the seventh day, she woke up vomiting violently.

Hospital doctors were alarmed by the yellowish tinge of her skin and blood tests revealed that her alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level – a measure of liver damage – was 2,575 units a litre, whereas normal is in the 7-to-35 range. 

The girl’s liver and kidneys were shutting down, and the build-up of fluids in her body was starting to cause heart trouble. She was placed on dialysis and spent 10 days in intensive care, before needing a month at home recovering.

‘I can’t believe a teenager can just walk into a store and buy stuff like this,’ her mother, Julie Papineau, reports The Globe and Mail. ‘Madeline was critically ill.’

She said she is pleased with the stronger warning on green tea extract products but feels it doesn’t go far enough.

‘I stand by my position that this product should be recalled.’

Joyce Boudreau-Hearn’s death was reportedly linked to green tea extracts

Joyce Boudreau-Hearn, from Mulgrave, Nova Scotia, died of complications from liver failure in 2010 after multiple transplants led to infection. 

Her daughter, Jocelyn Stewart, says the 55-year-old had been healthy before she started taking a green tea extract sold as a weight-loss supplement.

‘It says green tea extract – most of us link that to healthy,’ Stewart said, according to CBC News. 

‘Everybody buys a green tea; you can buy it anywhere. You think you will lose a few pounds. She lost her life.’ 

In 2015, a 16-year-old girl in England who was taking a green tea slimming pill turned yellow and developed hepatitis.

The unidentified patient was treated at the AE department of a Birmingham hospital, explained doctors describing the case in the journal BMJ Case Reports. 

When his liver failed, Matthew was given two weeks to live unless a replacement liver was found for him – and he ended up having to accept one with hepatitis B

Last year, a 27-year-old man in Australia nearly died after consuming two weight loss products and developing liver failure, 

Matthew Whitby, from Geraldton, was given two weeks to live and had no choice but to accept an emergency transplant of a liver with hepatitis B. 

Doctors say the substance that most likely caused his condition was green tea extract.

‘I just want people to know they should always do research and talk to their doctor before taking supplements,’ he told Daily Mail Australia at the time.