‘Healthy’ liquorice tea gave a woman high blood pressure
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.