BENGALURU: Starting your day with tea or coffee may not be as good as you may have thought. The bed tea culture can affect your in more ways than one.
Heading for that freshly brewed cup of tea or coffee first thing in the morning can do you more harm than good. Caffeine should not be the first thing that you give your body on an empty stomach. You need to line your stomach with some solids before you take caffeine else it may trigger the stomach acids and havoc your digestion through the day.
Here are reasons why tea or coffee on empty stomach is harmful
n Dehydrates your body: Tea is diuretic in nature, which removes the water from the body. When you get up in the morning, your body is already dehydrated due to eight hours of sleep without water.
n Disrupts the metabolic activity: Drinking tea on an empty stomach in the morning will disrupt your metabolic system due to the imbalance of acidic and alkaline substances in the stomach. This may interfere with regular metabolic activity of the body and might cause more body troubles.
n Causes nausea: The time between the night and morning is when your stomach is empty and drinking bed tea after getting up from sleep can affect the bile juice activities in your stomach. This can cause nausea and nervousness.
You can kick start your day with some healthy solids. Here are few ideas to have a wonderful and healthy start of your day: Oatmeal, eggs, watermelon or banana, nuts, wheat bread.
The best time to drink coffee or tea is after your breakfast or around 11 am.
The author is a consultant dietician at Apollo Clinic, Bangalore