Green Tea Powder For Weight Loss

Green tea, reported to positively affect cholesterol, diabetes and cancer, gets most of its healthy reputation as a weight loss supplement. Clinical studies generally support green tea distributors' claims about the tea's metabolism-boosting properties. If you want to enjoy the benefits of green tea without going to the fuss of brewing it yourself, powdered green tea may be the answer for you.

Convenience

Powdered green tea may be purchased in bulk form and dissolved in water as you would with any instant tea or coffee. You may also buy green tea capsules, which are filled with pulverized green tea leaves. Powdered green tea offers convenience, but expect to pay more than you would for loose leaf tea. Powdered green tea may give you more or less of the tea's weight loss properties. If you buy green tea powder that contains leaves and nothing else, you should get a product on par with loose leaves. Additives and the manufacturing process of creating the powder could, however, destroy some of the properties in the tea.

Catechins in Green Tea

Some powdered teas advertise that they contain 65 percent, 70 percent or 95 percent of the flavonoids in green tea. What's important to your weight loss efforts are not percentages, but actual milligrams of the flavonoids, which may also appear on labels as catechins, epigallocatechin gallate or EGCG. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, a 6 oz. cup of brewed green tea from loose leaves contains 127mg of catechins. Teas brewed from bags and bottled green tea contain considerably less. The amount of catechins in powdered green tea also varies. Green Breeze powdered tea, for example, contains 97mg of catechins per serving, while Green Tea Slim capsules contain 60mg and Meta-T Green Tea capsules contain 90mg.

Caffeine Considerations

Green tea in any form contains caffeine. Brewed green tea contains less caffeine than brewed black tea or coffee. The amount in green tea powder varies. If you are sensitive to the effects of caffeine, check the labels for caffeine content. Also, if you are pregnant, check with your physician before taking green tea powder. According to a report in the "British Medical Journal," caffeine may adversely affect the birth weights of babies, particularly when caffeine consumption is greater than 100 mg daily.

Other Sources of Catechins

Catechins are a type of antioxidant.Other foods and beverages contain catechins, but most contain fewer and more calories than green tea. According to the USDA, black plums contain 33mg, blueberries contain 52mg and blackberries contain 42mg. Dark chocolate and red wine also contain catechins. Other teas---all of them calorie-free-- contain catechins, but green tea contains more than both black and oolong tea. White tea, the least processed of any tea, contains the most.

Weight Loss Studies

Scientific interest in the health benefits of green tea has produced numerous studies, including one that found green tea to be an effective weight loss supplement for overweight dogs! Studies involving people include one in which the catechins in green tea and black tea were compared. For 12 weeks, half of the participants led by Kevin Maki supplemented a calorie-restricted diet with black tea and the other half added green tea to their daily menus. At the end of the trial, those who drank green tea had lost nearly twice as much weight as those who drank green tea. The green tea drinkers consumed 660mg of catechins daily and the black tea drinkers consumed 22mg, according to a report published in 2009 in the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition."