I dink green tea and I drink diet cola..a lot of diet cola at least 6 cans a day and I eat a lot of chocolate too..Now if caffeine was going to bother me I would be swollen to the point of exploding..I have had no flares at all and I think the green tea has made a differnce in a good way..Maybe I am just one of those people that it does not effect.

Cass

The study only says it tested black tea NOT green or herbal teas. It also said that it increases the risk of getting RA not making it worse once you already have it. I drink tea all the time and have never noticed a correlation to my flares. Weather definetly affects them if a wake up hurting worse the weather is generally worse so weird that that actually happens. I always thought people were bogus when they said stuff like that.

I drink green tea, black tea, white tea, ginger tea, oolang, blueberry, mango coconut, licorice, camomile and about 20 other teas. I drink about 10 cups a day.

Makes absolutely no difference to my flares. Some days I get a few, and other days none. I don't drink coffee at all. Can't stand the stuff.

The only thing I have noticed is that sometimes, not always curry makes the flares better (when I was in between meds). And I think wheat may have a tiny effetc making it worse.

So give me the heavy expensive drugs, and I am doing great. That is me.

As soon as someone can come up with a concrete list of things that really and truly effect RA and are detrimental to our daily living with the disease I will then probably make more of an effort to change my diet and lifestyles. You can read about things every day that are supposed to be bad, or possibly bad, or were determined to be bad but now are determined to be good, the list is endless. It is just proof that there are a lot of people out there making a living off of sick people. Personally I haven't really found anything that makes a difference in how I feel from day to day except maybe the 15 below we just had, cold, damp, snowy, etc.
I just try to enjoy myself, take my meds and make it through the day. I'm not going to deprive myself of a few of lifes little pleasures on the "maybe" factor. Take Care, Charlie

Hi:

I'm not a big tea drinker (just every now and then), but rather a two cup a day coffee drink. I find that it is how I sweeten it as well as how I lighten it that will cause me problems. I am sure it will be the same way with the tea.

So when I do my cup of coffee the 'right' way, I do much better.

I also drink water during the day.

{{{hugs}}}

"Prof Collins said he did not recommend that people change their tea-drinking habits based on the research.

"This was an unusual and complex finding but, from the data we have, there is a relationship between tea and the disease.

"There have been other studies which have either stated that tea has no effect on risk of arthritis, and one study which found tea had a protective effect."

He said the team had looked for supporting information that could explain their own findings."


I think the study is Suedo Science... I would question its validity... one study means nothing!

It could just be that any diuretic drink may cause you to flare up. I recommend drinking lots of water throughout the day.

For me, I know alcohol causes extreme dehydration, headache and body aches right after I have 1 drink!!! It only takes 1!! So I don't casually have alcohol anymore (I will have a drink or two followed by LOTS of water when there is a good reason to celebrate with friends and family, don't need to deprive yourself of that!!)

I love tea, but I can't drink that either. I have the same symptoms right after I consume tea, hot or cold and it doesn't matter what kind of tea it is. It's just not worth the pain afterwards!

I do, however, drink coffee in the morning because I can't go without 1 cup in the morning, followed by 2 glasses of water. Coffee doesn't give me the same symptoms that alcohol and tea do even though coffee is also a diuretic.

I hope this helps. I don't want you to deprive yourself of tea but definitely try going without it and see if that is the culprit. You won't know until you test it out. Good luck to you!

One thing we do need to be concerned about for those of us on methotrexate is that caffiene decreases the efficacy of the methotrexate. I have given up coffee and my diet pepsi except for one or so every week or two as a treat, trying to not use it at all the day or so after the shot.

I figure if I have to take such toxic medication, I need it to work correctly without me interfering via my diet. My information comes from drugs.com if you would like to check this.

I drink 14 different kinds of tea. I drink green tea, and macha every day. I go to tea when coffee gets me screwed up (inflammation aggitated). I've not seen a connection between tea and RA - but that is just ME. This is a strange disease, and it seems what triggers one does Not trigger another???
I hope for you it is the artificial sweetener and not the tea.

Oh dear, sorry.
I should read before I go spouting off.
" ... risk ... post-menopausal women " .... my bad.
Hmmm, interesting article. That's all I know.