Can I drink tea while taking Chinese medicine?

Drinking tea is something that many people like nowadays. Generally, there is no conflict between taking Chinese medicine and drinking tea, as long as there is a half-hour interval between them. Because tea has certain pharmacological functions, it may react with other medicines and cause poisoning. There are also very few teas that should be combined with Chinese medicine to play an auxiliary therapeutic role. Most of them are fine as long as there is a half-hour interval between them.

The following are some situations where you should not drink tea

1. When treating gastrointestinal lesions , especially patients with active peptic ulcers, it is not advisable to drink tea while taking medicine, let alone strong tea. Because strong tea contains high caffeine, which can enhance gastric secretion and affect the healing of ulcers.

2. It is not advisable to drink tea when taking tranquilizers , because the caffeine in tea can excite the cerebral cortex, thereby antagonizing the efficacy of tranquilizers and failing to achieve the therapeutic purpose.

3. It is not advisable to drink tea when taking tonic Chinese medicine . The tannic acid in tea has an astringent effect, which will hinder the body's absorption of nutrients such as protein. At the same time, the tannin in tea will interact with the active ingredients in the medicine, which will weaken the tonic effect. Therefore, when taking tonic medicines such as Codonopsis pilosula, Astragalus membranaceus, and Chinese yam, drinking tea, especially strong tea, will reduce the efficacy of the medicine.

4. The large amount of tannic acid contained in tea can easily form insoluble precipitation with biological alkali , making the medicine unable to be absorbed and unable to play a role. The active ingredients of many traditional Chinese medicines are biological alkalis. For example, ephedra contains ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, coptis chinensis and phellodendron both contain berberine, and stemona contains stemonae. Others include Corydalis yanhusuo, Cirsium japonicum, and Cyathula capitata. The active ingredients of Datura and other herbs are also mainly bioalkaloids. Therefore, if the decoctions of these medicines are taken with tea, precipitation will occur and the efficacy of the medicines will be affected.