Senna tea is one of several dietary supplements sold as weight-loss teas under the promise that they promote weight loss without all the tedious dieting and exercise. As with any other product that makes this promise, it's worth investigating exactly how the tea achieves the promised results.
Senna Basics
Products sold as "senna tea" are not a true tea; they're not made from the camelia sinensis plant but from the senna or cassia plant, so senna tea products made from dried leaves steeped in water are an herbal tea. However, some senna tea products are juices made from senna and other ingredients, so they're not really tea at all. Some brands sell the dried leaves of the senna plants while others mix the juice from the leaves into a bottled beverage. In both cases, the weight-loss benefits derive from the same source.
Senna as a Laxative
Senna is a traditional remedy for indigestion, constipation and similar gastric illnesses. As a treatment, it relies on the fact that senna is a laxative. It relaxes your bowels and stimulates you to defecate more frequently -- and in greater volume. This is helpful in solving gastric complaints because it gets what's bothering your tummy out of your system faster than it would have otherwise.
Laxatives and Weight Loss
Senna tea works for weight loss because increasing how much you excrete eliminates pounds of partially digested food from your belly. This makes a noticeable difference on your bathroom scale, the same way the lost sweat after a vigorous workout can do. However, the weight will return once you fill up again at your next meal and the effects of the tea have gone away.
Common Sense Caution
Using a laxative to lose weight neither helps you burn fat nor establishes the healthy patterns of diet and exercise that lead to safe and sustainable weight loss. Always check with your doctor before beginning a weight-loss regimen; this is especially important when considering a weight-loss supplement that changes how your body processes food. Long-term use of any laxative can have negative effects on your health, so don't use senna tea over an extended period of time.
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