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This should have been one of the happiest days of his life. But Jim McCants looks up at the graduation of his youngest son in high school, with mixed feelings.
When he sat next to his wife Cathleen in the university auditorium, near Dallas, Texas, he turned to watch him.
"She said," Are you feeling good? "Remember Jim. "I said," Yes, I feel good, why? "" Your face is yellow, your eyes are yellow, you are terrible " When I looked in the mirror, it was shocking."
] Jim, 50 years old at the time, was working to improve his lifestyle and lose weight, focusing on a healthy diet and regular exercise.
"My father had a heart attack at age 59 and did not do it," says Jim. "We lost a lot of things and I was determined to do everything in my power to take care of myself as best as possible, so that nothing is missing."
But shortly after graduation from his son, Jim entered the hospital because of suspicion of hepatic injury.
In trying to determine the cause of Jim's liver injury, the doctors who treated him threw away alcohol.
"In the last 30 years, I have drunk perhaps a pack of six beers a year, and no wine, which is why alcohol has not been present in most of my life. life, "Jim said.
He also excluded prescription drugs (he had not taken any at that time) and cigarettes, which he had never done before.
"Then my hepatologist asked a series of questions about over-the-counter supplements," says Jim.
As part of his life, taking care of his health at an advanced age, Jim had started taking a green tea supplement because it might have heart benefits .
These supplements have gained popularity in recent years, often being the subject of fierce promotion online for their antioxidant benefits and their supposed ability to help lose weight and prevent Cancer.
"I felt good at the time," recalls Jim, who lives in Prosper, north of Dallas.
"I walked or ran for 30 to 60 minutes, five or six days a week."
] I worked as a finance director, but I was waiting to attend a doctor badistant training course. "I took two or three clbades at once in the evenings and weekends," he recalls.
He took the green tea supplement for two or three months when he became ill . According to Jim's medical record, this is the presumed cause of his liver damage. "It was shocking because I had only heard about the benefits," Jim recalls. "I had heard of no problem."
After entering the hospital, Jim went into a "queue", waiting for the results of a series of blood tests to establish the severity of his liver injury.
Then, about three weeks after his wife first noticed that he looked sick, one of his doctors told him that he was afraid : "She needed a liver transplant., This had to be done quickly and that there was only a few days left, not even a week."
Jim was stunned.
"At that time, I realized how everything seemed to me dark and materialize what is important in life I did not think about projects in progress, I thought about people who were important for me for different reasons. "
What about the supplements of green tea that could cause damage to certain doses to a few people? Scientists do not know for sure.
Green tea has been drunk for thousands of years. Supplements consist of a concentrated form and are regulated in the United States and Europe as a food and not as a medicine.
This means that no specific safety test has been required. That's why the body of science on how green tea supplements could affect our health is incomplete .
"If you take a modest amount of green tea you are safe," Professor Herbert Bonkovsky, director of liver services at the School of Medicine at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, has been following wounds linked to green tea supplements for almost 20 years.
"The most important risk concerns people who take these extracts more concentrated" .
The concern is focused on a potentially toxic ingredient called epigallocatechin-3-gallate or EGCG, the most abundant natural compound with antioxidant properties in green tea called catechins.
A number of factors can probably make a person sensitive. e be injured by EGCG, including genetics, and how supplements are used.
"Usually people take these tea extracts from green tea to lose weight and, as a result, they often stop eating," says Dr. Bonkovsky.
"Studies have shown us that fasting animals take up a much higher percentage of catechins than fatty animals, and there may be other factors, such as other drugs, that are not readily available. other chemicals or the consumption of alcohol, which also play an important role as modifying factors. "
Although millions of people safely take green tea supplements, at less than 80 cases of liver injury related to green tea supplements worldwide ranging from lbaditude and jaundice to cases requiring liver transplantation. Green tea can be counted as a teenager, such as Madeline Papineau, a 17-year-old Canadian who developed a liver and kidney lesion, and Madeline Papineau, and an 81-year-old woman in which acute toxic hepatitis was diagnosed. A recent study by the European Food Safety Authority on the safety of green tea concluded that green tea drink catechins are "generally safe". "but causes health problems when administering doses of catechin greater than or equal to 800 mg per day".
EFSA was unable to identify a safe dose based on available data and requested that further research be conducted.
The next day, Jim learned that he needed a liver transplant. He was also surprised to learn that he had found a liver that suited him. "I was delighted, the phone call that there was a liver for me made me hope that there would be something positive in this situation," says- he.
A liver transplant saved Jim's life . But four years later, he still has serious health problems, including kidney disease that may require dialysis and transplantation in the future. He meets liver and kidney specialists twice a year and suffers from chronic abdominal pain.
"My life was pretty active before, and now I am a lot more sedentary and tired," he says.
This is a "tremendous blessing", as he says, that his managers allow him to work from home. "I may need a break of 20 or 30 minutes in the day, I can tell my manager that I will disconnect and come back for a while."
Jim sued the American firm Vitacost, which sold the green tea supplement it took . "I hope that they will make the decision to put a very strong warning label on the product, on the website, that people know before they buy," he said. -he declares.
Vitacost declined to comment on the case, but said: "We take the safety of our Vitacost brand supplements very seriously and support the quality of our products."
Four years later, Jim reflects on the changes in his life and that of his family after taking a tea supplement. Green
"I was not expecting something serious, I hoped maybe I would have wasted my money, or that I would have taken it and that it was n & rsquo; Would have no effect. " This risk could bear it, "he says.
" But the risk of the liver is reaching is too high for someone to take it. "
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