How Green Tea Works for Weight Loss

All effective weight loss programs require the same two essential elements. To lose weight, the body must consume less fuel and burn more energy. Green Tea helps accomplish both goals.

"Filling up" with tea reduces the chance of eating or drinking something else that might have a higher caloric value or fat count. Green Tea also helps the body burn energy. One study found that Green Tea drinkers burn as much as 4% more energy than people who did not consume green tea. Green Tea appears to transform the body into an energy burning machine.

As a weight loss remedy, Green Tea Extract is believed to work by stimulating brown fat tissue thermogenesis. The thermogenic (thermogenic means "fat burning") properties come from the natural mixture of caffiene, polyphenols, theophylline and theobromine found in Green Tea.

Researchers have found that Green Tea extract burns more fat than what would be expected of caffeine alone, indicating a strong synergistic effect between green tea's catechin-polyphenol and caffeine content. The polyphenols found in Green Tea are important because of their antioxidant activity, an essential element when the metabolic rate in the oxidation of fat is increased.

Obesity researchers wrote in the International Journal of Obesity that "such a synergistic interaction between catechin-polyphenols and caffeine to augment and prolong sympathetic stimulation of thermogenesis could be of value in assisting the management of obesity." [ref]

The benefits of anti-oxidants in cancer prevention are well documented. In addition to its antioxidant properties, Green Tea polyphenol appears to target the mitochondria in tumor cells, [ref] killing the cell before it can grow.

As a health care product, Green Tea has shown more promising results than black tea in the treatment of obesity and as a cancer-preventing antioxidant.