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Questions & Answers:
A green tea even good enough for your dog
Let's Talk Tea With
Dog Lovers
Submit
your own questions to Dr. Lee
- Why should
my dog drink green tea to prevent cancer?
-
Most commercial dry dog foods that
we feed to our beloved canine friends contain added chemicals to
keep the fats from turning rancid, to glue the dried food particles
together, to make the food less attractive to household insects, or
to retard the growth of bacteria and fungi. In addition, the
ingredients of the dog foods are from various sources, including
some unidentifiable by-products or waste products of the food
industry and even of the wood products industry. Therefore, there are
carcinogens and pro-carcinogens in the dog foods. Some observers
said that our dogs develop cancers, especially malignant lymphoma,
more often than humans. This is why you should make your dogs drink a
High Potency Green Tea as part of their daily dietary supplement - to
prevent or to delay the occurrence of canine cancers just like in
humans. It is impossible to avoid all foods with carcinogens or
pro-carcinogens even for the dogs. ↑top
- This is
the first time I've heard of giving green tea to dogs. How
can I make my dog drink green tea?
-
Dogs can taste bitterness
although they have fewer taste buds than humans. When thirsty, the
dogs will drink even a bitter green tea. However, when presented
both water and green tea at the same time, the dog will choose
plain water over the tea. The dog prefers drinking freshly brewed
cooled green tea to the leftover oxidized tea that has become
increasingly bitter in taste after exposure to the air for several
hours, even in the cold. If you use a high quality green tea, like
that offered by TeaForHealth™ and prepare the tea properly, your dog will drink
the tea spiced with a bit of its favorite food, happily most of
the time. ↑top
- How
much green tea should my dog drink for cancer prevention?
-
Based on the published data
derived from human and other animal model research, a dog with
an average of about 50 lbs. body weight should drink about 300
to 500 ml of green tea per day for cancer prevention. The tea
liquid should be properly prepared by extracting about 4 gm of
dry tea leaves containing at least 7% EGCG in dry weight in a
300- to 400-ml tea steeper. This is the same concentration of
green tea commonly used in humans for its soothing aroma. For
dogs, the liquid tea can be prepared once a day and stored
in a capped plastic bottle in the refrigerator. The daily dose
of green tea can be divided into two or three portions for the
dog to drink instead of water. One can put a few tablespoonfuls
of whole cow’s milk or some minced boiled pork liver (liver
paste or any favorite food) into the green tea to speed up the
drinking process. Your veterinarian may help you to adjust the
dose of the green tea if your dog weighs much less or much more than
50 lbs. ↑top
- How
do I prepare green tea properly for my dog?
-
Please refer to the How To Brew TeaForHealth™ section for
humans. Brewing tea for dogs should follow the same
procedure. ↑top
-
What is the dose of green tea for the treatment
of canine cancer?
-
With your veterinarian as
your consultant, you may use a High Potency Green Tea
as an adjunct in
combination with a non-toxic antineoplastic drug(s) or the
conventional chemotherapeutic drugs for treating the
cancer of your dog. As a general recommendation for you and
your veterinarian to consider, the concentration of the
green tea should be three to five times that used for
cancer prevention. That is about 10-15 grams of dry tea
leaves for a 400-ml steeper. At this concentration, the tea
liquid may become milky in appearance when stored in
refrigerator, because the polyphenol polymers are less
soluble at cold temperatures. Do not re-heat the cold tea to
avoid degradation of the antioxidants. Discard all tea
liquid after 24 hours. For more information, please refer to
the Tea Library on this
website. ↑top
-
Can you name the carcinogenic chemicals added to
commercial dog foods, for example?
- The commonly used synthetic chemical
antioxidants (do not confuse these chemicals with the
harmless natural antioxidants in green tea, vegetables
and fruits) for preventing the fats in dry dog foods from
turning rancid are butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA),
butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) and ethoxyquin. These
chemicals also function as dog food preservatives, because
they have bacteriostatic effects. In experimental animal
models, they can cause cancers in the urinary bladder,
kidney, forestomach among other organs and can accelerate
the aging processes. On the other hand, they can neutralize
the cancer-causing effects of aflatoxin B1 in the liver.
The FDA allows a very small amount of these chemicals in
meat products. However, the allowable limits in dry dog
foods are over 100 times the limits set for the meats for
human consumption. Since most dogs eat dry food every day
as their only diet, the intake of these carcinogens is
enormous in quantity. According to two scientific
reports, BHA, BHT and ethoxyquin probably act as tumor
promoters or enhancers¹,².
↑top
¹
Ito N, Fukushima S, Tsuda H.
Carcinogenicity and modification of the carcinogenic
response by BHA, BHT and other antioxidants. Crit Rev
Toxicol 1985;15:109-150.
²
Manson MM, Green JA, Driver HE.
Ethoxyquin alone induces preneoplastic changes in rat
kidney whilst preventing induction of such lesions in
liver by aflatoxin B1. Carcinogenesis 1987;8:723-728.
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