The Mail on Sunday

‘Healthy’ liquorice tea gave a woman high blood pressure

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HERBAL tea is an option for those who want to cut back on caffeine – but one woman who opted for six cups of liquorice tea a day gave herself high blood pressure.

The 45-year-old British woman visited her doctor complainin­g of hot flushes, headaches and nausea. Tests showed that she had high blood pressure.

It had been triggered by a compound in liquorice root, called glycyrrhiz­in, which is up to 50 times sweeter than sugar and can alter the balance of salts in the body, affecting blood pressure.

According to a case report in the British Medical Journal, the woman’s blood pressure returned to normal two weeks later, simply by ditching her herbal tea.

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