An Arkansas man’s kidney failure is being attributed to his habit of drinking 128 ounces of iced tea each day. The 56-year-old man is now on dialysis. “It was the only reasonable explanation,” said Dr. Umbar Ghaffar of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, according to Fox News. Dr. Ghaffar–with two colleagues–published correspondence on the case in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine. It’s called “A Case of Iced-Tea Nephropathy.”
The man was admitted to the hospital last May, his kidneys afflicted by oxalate crystals, natural chemicals found in black tea and other common foods. Oxalates are found in some nuts, bran, spinach, chocolate and more.