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Too much iced tea caused US man’s kidney problems

Doctors traced a man’s kidney failure to an unusual cause—his habit of drinking a gallon (almost four liters) of iced tea each day.

They ruled out several potential causes before stumbling on a reason for the 56-year-old Arkansas man’s kidney problems. He said he drank about 16 8-ounce (about a quarter of a liter) cups of iced tea every day. Black tea has a chemical known to cause kidney stones or even kidney failure in excessive amounts.

“It was the only reasonable explanation,” said Dr. Umbar Ghaffar of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. She and two other doctors describe the case in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

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