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Food for thought
- Beware of Soya Bean
- How safe is blood transfusion?
- Health Warning - Acrylamide
- To Each His Own
- Mate tea may cause Cancer
- The Three Rules of Life
- Coming Clean with Cancer
- HOTA Opt-out System
- Facing up to Mortality
- The Hearing Aid Story
- Fad Diets
- Profitable Poison - Botox
- Rich in Love
- Whistle Blowers
- Is cancer really a "jinx" word?
- Cancer - An eye-opener

- Letter to SingHealth - 4 Jun 07
Sharing of Moral Values

The above Chinese calligraphy is kindly
contributed by Ms Florence Shen


Mate Tea may cause Cancer

I read the advertisement on Mate Tea in the Mind Your Body section with great interest.

The healing benefits are quite convincing but I decided to borrow the book 'Herbs Demystified' from the National Library to gather more information on Yerba mate, or mate for short ('MAH-tay').

The author recommended that it is best to consume mate tea in small amounts, and not habitually as it has the ability to increase cancer risk.

Quote : "Here is bad news for habitual mate tea drinkers. Studies show that South Americans who have a mate habit risk a variety of different cancers. Oral, esophageal, oropharyngeal, lung, kidney, bladder, and head and neck cancers are all increased with increased consumption of mate."

Mate tea is also sold in retail pharmacies in some local government hospitals. Very often, consumers tend to have more confidence in the credibility and efficacy of products sold in retail pharmacies.

I am disturbed by this piece of information. Are the findings factual? It will be helpful and beneficial to consumers if the local cancer scientists can shed light on it. In August 2007, I sent my letter to the editors of Straits Times Forum and 'Mind Your Body' but it failed to receive their attention.

As it is better to err on the safer side, I would stay away from Mate tea even though it has ingredients that are antioxidant, which is good, but it also has pro-oxidant agents which is bad.


Posted on 3 September 2007



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