Is Black Tea Or Green Tea More Effective For Weight Loss?

As drinks go, tea remains extremely popular around the globe. Billions of people consume some form of tea each day, including both black and green teas. They both come from the leaves of the same plant, the camellia sinensis shrub, although processing methods create different drinks with a different range of compounds.

Camelia Sinensis

The majority of the world's tea grows in Asia, reports Worlds Healthiest Foods, with India now standing out as the leading exporter. The exact qualities of tea leaves from the camellia sinensis plant, which can grow to around 30 feet but typically undergoes plucking at around 3 foot, depend on local conditions such as altitude, climate and soil. Processing then determines whether they become black or green tea.

Green Tea

Unlike black tea, which pickers leave out to ferment, green tea undergoes minimal processing. This affects the nutritional content of the leaves and preserves their polyphenol content. This makes a massive difference to the antioxidant capacity of the drink, as well as its effects on weight loss.

Catechins

Of the polyphenols preserved in green tea, catechins stand out as particularly relevant for weight loss. David Tolson, a nutritional researcher and contributor to Bulk Nutrition, points out that a 20th of the weight of green tea comes from epigallocatechin-gallate. Also known as ECGC, it represents a particularly potent catechin compound.

Thermogenesis

EGCG stimulates thermogenesis, a process through which the body burns fat to increase the temperature of the body. Tolson notes how the compound inhibits the breakdown of noradrenaline in the central nervous system, which triggers an increased rate of thermogenesis and fat burning. Black tea does not offer any measurable amounts of catechins and, as a result, does not offer the same fat-burning benefits.

Evidence

In 2002, two French scientists investigated the effects of the catechin compounds on weight loss. They selected a group of volunteers and, for three months, supplied half with a green tea extract. Their results, published in the "Phytomedicine" journal, showed that those receiving the extract reduced their waist circumference by an average of 4.6 percent, and their body weight by an average of 4.5 percent.