This article discusses the effects of caffeine and green tea consumption during pregnancy. It recommends limiting green tea intake due to compounds that can interfere with folate absorption and affect fetal development. Moderate caffeine consumption from coffee and tea of up to 3 cups of coffee or 6 cups of tea daily is considered safe, but higher intake over 600mg per day can reduce birth weight. Drinking 8 or more cups of coffee daily increases risk of miscarriage or stillbirth.

1. Title:
Prenatal Nutrition: The Effects Of Caffeine and Green Tea
Word Count:
552
Summary:
Pregnant women should limit the amount of green tea they drink during
pregnancy. This article discusses why, as well as providing a guideline
on how much coffee and tea can be safely drunk without significantly
affecting the birth weight of your baby, or increasing the chance of
miscarriage or stillbirths.
Keywords:
green tea side effects, green tea health, healthy pregnancy, prenatal
nutrition
Article Body:
Pregnant women would be wise to limit the amount of green tea they drink
during pregnancy, and should be careful about taking any green tea
supplements. Green tea is rich in antioxidants, and has a host of health
benefits relating to dental health, blood sugar levels, cholesterol, and
weight loss. But researchers have found, whilst examining the active
constituent of green tea, the epigallocatechins, or EGCG for short, that
it may affect the way the body uses folate. Folate is important for
pregnant women as it prevents neural tube birth defects in babies.
The problem of green tea during pregnancy is that the EGCG molecules are
structurally similar to a compound called methotrexate. Methotrexate is
able to kill cancer cells by chemically bonding with an enzyme in the
body called enzyme dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR). Healthy people have
this enzyme also - it is part of what is called the folate pathway, which
is the pathway, or steps, the body takes to transform nutrients like
folate into something that can be used to support its normal functions.
But this chemical similarity means that the EGCG in green tea also binds
with the enzyme DHFR, and when it does this, it inactivates this enzyme.
When this enzyme is inactivated, the ability of the body to use folate is
going to be affected. How much green tea is able to be consumed, or
precisely how much folate absorption is affected, is unclear. Though the
research article did say that drinking 2 cups of green tea a day can stop
cancer cells (which is what methotrexate is targeting) from growing.
The good news on caffeine drank during pregnancy, from coffee and tea, is
that a moderate amount is fine. Two studies, one by Danish scientists who
interviewed more than 88,000 pregnant women, and the other by the Yale
University School of Medicine, had similar findings on caffeine during
pregnancy.
The concerns over caffeine were that it would lead to low birth weight or
miscarriage. And this is still true of a very high daily intake of
coffee. The Yale team found that drinking about 600mg of caffeine a day,

2. which is about 6 cups of coffee, would reduce birth weight to levels that
were clinically significant. The rate at which birth weight was reduced
was established at being 28 grams per 100 mg, or 1 cup, of coffee per
day. But they emphasized that this would not be significant for moderate
caffeine consumption.
The Danish study found that drinking 8 cups or more of coffee per day
(this would be about 16 cups or more of tea), would increase the chances
of miscarriage, or stillbirth, by 60% compared to women who did not drink
caffeine. They also found that moderate coffee or tea drinking did not
pose significant risks. For those drinking half a cup to 3 cups of coffee
a day, the risk of fetal death was 3% higher compared to non-caffeine
drinkers. And for those drinking 4 to 7 cups of coffee a day, the risk
increases to 33%. One cup of coffee equals about 2 cups of tea when
comparing caffeine levels. The recommended amount of coffee drunk is up
to 3 cups daily, or 6 cups of tea, by the UK food agency.
References:
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=58807
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/news/ng.asp?id=24747
http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng.asp?id=63174
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