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Healthy Weight Loss Using Tea

May 29, 2011 | By Gryphon Adams
Healthy Weight Loss Using Tea
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Healthy weight loss requires a balanced diet. Making lifestyle changes, including creating eating habits you can sustain long-term and increasing your physical activity, supports healthy weight loss, the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute advises. Preliminary studies suggest tea may promote weight loss, but further research is needed. As with all supplements, consult your doctor before using tea for weight loss.

Background

If you're overweight, losing 5 percent to 10 percent of your current weight can reduce your risk of developing cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes and osteoarthritis of the knee, according to New York University's Langone Medical Center. It takes a calorie deficit of 3,500 to lose 1 lb. Taking brisk walks most days of the week and choosing whole foods over processed and sugary foods -- to cut 500 calories a day below your maintenance level -- can help you lose weight at a safe rate of 1 to 2 lbs. a week. Tea may help with weight loss by giving you an energy lift for exercise, providing a non-caloric beverage -- and may also promote fat-burning.

Green Tea

Certain preliminary studies suggest that green tea may help to promote weight loss, but the overall results of scientific research have been mixed, with some studies showing weight loss benefits and others showing little or no effect, according to New York University's Langone Medical Center.

Overweight men who consumed 300 mg of EGCG, a component of green tea, burned fat at a significantly greater rate following meals, according to researchers from Switzerland's DSM Nutritional products who published their findings in the 2010 "European Journal of Clinical Nutrition." The low dose of EGCG resulted in greater fat burning than a doubled dose of EGCG. Two cups of green tea provide an equivalent amount of EGCG to the dose used in the study. Further research is needed.

Oolong Tea

Oolong tea may have greater fat-burning ability than green tea, although further research is needed. More than 64 percent of 102 overweight and obese subjects who consumed 8 g of oolong tea per day for six weeks lost weight during the study and reduced their waist sizes. The researchers from China's Shenyang Pharmaceutical University suggest oolong tea may reduce body fat and weight through improving lipid metabolism, the body's ability to breakdown fat. They published their findings in the "Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine." Consuming oolong tea along with a moderately calorie-reduced diet and regular physical activity may help you burn more body fat.

Considerations

A combination of yerba mate, damiana and guarana resulted in greater weight loss in overweight subjects during a 45-day study compared to a control group taking a placebo, researchers from Denmark's Medical Center Charlottenlund reported in the June 2001 "Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics." This combination of South American herbs resulted in delayed stomach emptying; the subjects felt full sooner and ate less. Yerba mate tea is derived from a South American holly plant, Ilex paraguariensis.

Green tea, oolong tea and yerba mate all contain caffeine. Increasing your caffeine intake can make you restless, irritable and anxious. Pregnant and nursing women should avoid caffeine. Caffeine can cause insomnia, headache, abnormal heart rhythms and may interact with certain supplements or medications, according to MedlinePlus. Consult your doctor about your caffeine intake and weight loss.

References

Article reviewed by GlennK Last updated on: May 29, 2011

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