Green Tea and Weight Loss

You’ve seen green tea products marketed everywhere; everything from green tea supplements and extracts to “diet” teas. While there is no shortage of product and marketing information on green tea, I was curious to see what the scientific literature showed. Specifically, I wanted to find out if green tea would be an effective strategy to lose unwanted fat.

Population studies show that consuming 2 cups of green tea a day for 10 years is associated with a lower body fat percentage, suggesting that green tea could be an effective weight loss aid. Particular interest has been given to green tea catechins which are antioxidant compounds also found in chocolate and red wine.

Green Tea Catechins with Caffeine

7 Trials involving Green Tea catechins and caffeine showed an average weight loss of 3 lbs when compared to those taking caffeine along. Surprisingly, 6 trials involving Green Tea catechins with caffeine showed even less weight loss of 1 pound compared with those who took no caffeine.

Green Tea Catechins without Caffeine

2 trials involving Green Tea catechins alone showed no significant weight loss.

Discussion

I should say that these studies used different forms of green tea. Some involved actual green tea drinks and others used green tea extracts. The combination of green tea catechins and caffeine looked to be the most effective for weight loss considering that green tea catechins alone showed no weight loss.

Green tea already has caffeine in it so perhaps there is an additive effect of the catechins and caffeine responsible for weight loss since the combination was more effective for weight loss than caffeine alone and catechins which showed no weight loss.

Is Green Tea an effective strategy for weight loss?

Green tea itself will not result in significant weight loss. Remember that weight loss with green tea was 1-3 pounds over an average of 12 weeks. For pharmaceutical weight-loss products on the market, patients are considered to have failed treatment if they have not achieved a loss of 5 pounds after 4 wk of therapy. So by this measure green tea would have failed as a weight loss drug.

What do I recommend?

If you drink 2 cups of green tea a day you should expect to lose about 1-3 pounds over 12 weeks. By all means drink green tea; just don’t think you’ll drop a couple pant sizes because of it. Oh… one more thing.. “diet tea’ is no more effective than regular green tea.

Also stay away from Green Tea Extract Products! There have been reports of green tea extracts causing acute liver failure and some patients even required liver transplants.