Low blood potassium. It's usually caused by excessive amounts of it being excreted, that leads to muscle weakness, heart irregularities, disorientation, and sometimes cardiac arrest.
In terms of the article, the case study includes only 2 examples. These are also extreme examples because according to the report:
the daughter of the couple who observed that her parents each drank up to 2.5 L of strongly-brewed Vietnamese green tea per day. Both patients had been drinking identical quantities of green tea for over 40 years. When questioned about this, they said that their high level of consumption was because of the perceived health benefits of drinking green tea.
2.5 L of any beverage is abnormal, and will cause side-effects. Furthermore, they were already on medication that's known to reduce potassium ions in the blood. Consider the learning points:
Learning points
When investigating electrolyte imbalances, clinicians should always be wary of dietary influences.
We would like to draw attention to hypokalaemia as a potential side effect of green tea overconsumption either on its own or with prescribed medications.
Before green tea can be safely labelled as a ‘health food’, more research should be conducted into the potential side effects of excessive consumption.
I don't think there's a prominent correlation between the two factors here.
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