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Green Tea Could Promote Weight Loss

Imagine the appeal of a capsule that really could help overweight customers shed excess fat without side effects. Some plant ingredients—including those in green tea—may modulate the sympathoadrenal system, which regulates calorie and fat-burning via the sympathetic nervous system, the adrenal glands and specific nerve chemicals. Because sympathoadrenal nerve signals can alter the rate of fat burned, compounds that affect this system could alter body composition.

Researchers at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, recently investigated a green tea extract's fat-burning properties. Their objective was twofold: to test green tea's effect on 24-hour energy expenditure and fat oxidation in humans, and to explore whether the metabolic effects were greater than those from an equal amount of caffeine, a mild thermogenic agent. Thermogenesis, or excess calorie burning, produces more heat than resting metabolism. Ten healthy men were recruited and randomly assigned to receive three daily doses of either placebo, 50 mg caffeine or a green tea extract containing 50 mg caffeine and 90 mg epigallocatechin gallate, one of tea's most prevalent and important catechins. The green tea preparation, commercially available as Exolise, is manufactured by Arkopharma Laboratories of Nice, France. The Swiss National Science Research Fund and Arkopharma supported this research.

The results, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition [1999 Dec;70(6):1040-5], indicate that, relative to placebo, taking green tea extract caused a significantly greater increase than pure caffeine in 24-hour energy expenditure and the portion of fat calories burned. The researchers concluded, "The green tea extract may play a role in the control of body composition via sympathetic activation of thermogenesis, fat oxidation or both."

Results indicated that 266 extra calories were burned per day while taking the green tea product. Whether this product produces a change in body weight/composition, or if green tea beverages would have similar effects, still needs to be explored.

—British Medical Journal 1999
Dec 11;319:1534-9.