Impact of drinking Chinese green tea on postoperative short outcomes for gastric cancer: a randomized controlled trial

• Published in: European journal of clinical nutrition 2021-11, Vol.75 (11), p.1568-1577
• Main Authors: Liu, Dan, Jing, Xinxin, Cao, Shougen, Liu, Xiaodong, Tan, Xiaojie, Jiang, Haitao, Niu, Zhaojian, Su, Mengmeng, Zhang, Jian, Zhang, Xingqi, Liu, Gan, Zhou, Yanbing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/67/1504/1829; 692/308/2779/777; 692/699/1503/1504/1829; Analgesia; Analgesics; Caffeine; Cancer; Care and treatment; China; Clinical Nutrition; Coffee; Complications; Complications and side effects; Drinking; Drinking water; Epidemiology; Fatigue; Food; Gastrectomy; Gastric cancer; Gastrointestinal surgery; Green tea; Health aspects; Humans; Ileus - etiology; Inflammation; Internal Medicine; Intestine; Laparoscopy; Laparoscopy - adverse effects; Laparoscopy - methods; Length of Stay; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Metabolic Diseases; Methods; Pain perception; Patient outcomes; Patients; Postoperative; Postoperative care; Postoperative Complications - epidemiology; Public Health; Stomach cancer; Stomach Neoplasms - surgery; Surgery; Tea; Treatment Outcome
• ISSN: 0954-3007; 1476-5640
• DOI: 10.1038/s41430-021-00868-8

Background Early intake after surgery can decrease postoperative ileus. Several studies show coffee can stimulate bowel activity and be safe in patients after elective colectomy, mainly due to caffeine. It was postulated that drinking Chinese green tea as rich caffeine beverage after subtotal distal gastrectomy accelerates postoperative recovery in patients. Method This was a single-centre parallel open-label randomized trial. Patients with gastric cancer undergoing robotic or laparoscopic subtotal gastrectomy were randomly allocated to receive drinking Chinese green tea (GT group) or potable water (PW group) after surgery. The primary endpoint was the time to gastrointestinal function recovery and tolerance of solid food, and the secondary endpoints included the incidence of postoperative complications, symptoms of postoperative adverse reaction, length of stay, pain as assessed by analgesic consumption and a visual analogue scale, and fatigue as assessed by a fatigue score model. Results A total of 80 patients were recruited, 40 to each group. Patient characteristics were similar in both groups. The GT group showed significantly shorter time to gastrointestinal function recovery compared with PW group to first flatus (47.23 ± 13.46 vs. 76.96 ± 20.35, P