A new study backs up the popular, long-held belief that green tea can aid in weight loss.
Researchers at the Cruzeiro do Sul University in São Paulo, Brazil, fed mice what they said resembled a traditional Western diet. It included foods like fat, chocolate, cookies, dulce de leche, and condensed milk, and it lasted for four weeks.
The mice continued this diet for an additional 12 weeks, but the researchers began giving some of them a standardized green tea extract. The extract was sourced from the Camellia sinensis plant. The mice received it at a dose of 500 mg per kg of body weight.
According to News-Medical.Net, which summarized the study, the researchers found that the supplement helped reduce weight and improve glucose control. These findings back up previous studies like a 2022 paper published in the European Journal of Nutrition. It found that obese mice treated with green tea lost up to 30% of their body weight.
The findings could eventually translate into weight-loss solutions for humans.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 40% of American adults are considered obese. Obesity can increase the risk of certain health complications such as Type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea, some cancers, and heart disease, as stated by the Mayo Clinic.
The study’s lead author, Rosemari Otton, also warned that it’s too early to determine a safe and effective dose of green tea for humans. For one, the amount of green tea extract given to mice in this study would translate to three cups’ worth of tea.
“Ready-made tea bags do not always guarantee the quantity or quality of the compounds,” she added, according to the news site. “The ideal for consumption would be to use standardized green tea extract, like those found in compounding pharmacies.”
Otton noted that every person’s body reacts differently as well.
Still, she argued for more momentum to pursue natural and accessible treatments for obesity. They could be better alternatives to current medications, which are expensive and often come with side effects.
GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, which are often prescribed for weight loss, have flooded public awareness recently. But unexpected side effects are popping up.
Some new research suggests that they may disrupt cancer imaging and its diagnosis. Another study has found a potential brighter side to these medications: heart failure patients who use GLP-1 drugs actually produce less carbon pollution because they are less likely to be hospitalized than those who don’t take these medications.
“The idea is to have safe, natural, effective, and high-quality compounds. The Camellia sinensis plant offers this,” Otton told News-Medical.Net. “We’re still studying all the compounds involved, but there’s no doubt that green tea, as a plant matrix rich in flavonoids, has important therapeutic potential.”
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