Green Tea Diet Evaluation

Green tea has become increasingly popular with people interested in diet and weight loss. The inclusion of green tea diet into pills, and supplements for losing weight may be attributed to the harmful side effects associated with some other preparations.

Why Green Tea Diet is Favored

For thousands of years, green tea diet has been favored in Asia, for its health advantages. It differs from other tea diets as a liquid is obtained through steaming the leaves of the Camellia Sinensis plant. This method is believed to preserve antioxidants useful for counteracting free radicals.

Green tea diet is an outstanding provider of polycatechin polyphenols, which are a group of antioxidants. Free radicals are undesirable as they are major causes of diseases and premature aging. Therefore, helping yourself to green tea diet’s polycatechin polyphenols, provides a way of limiting significant illnesses, and remaining healthy for as long as possible.

EGCG, which is short for Epigallocatechin Gallate, is also found in green tea diet, and interacts with its small caffeine content, to support thermogenesis in the body.

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition noted that with the intake of green tea diet, the body’s normal 24-hour energy output is increased by as much as four percent. Interestingly, it equates to around 10 pounds of weight loss per month.

Owing to its thermogenic properties green tea diet assists in helping to increase the body's metabolism of sugars and fats. Insulin turns surplus glucose into fats but as green tea diet limits this process, it inhibits sugar from being stored as fat, and more readily available for use by the muscles.

Green Tea Diet Reputation

Notwithstanding green tea diet's reputation for enhancing health, scientific evidence of its health advantages are inconclusive. It is apparent from an article published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that American researchers teamed up with their Chinese equivalents to consider the effectiveness of green tea diet on cholesterol levels.

In a survey, 240 men and women, averaging 55 years of age, with mild to moderately high LDL cholesterol levels were instructed to maintain their usual low-fat diet, green tea diet intake, and activity levels. After twelve weeks, it was found that those who consumed green tea diet extract with their normal meals decreased their total LDL cholesterol levels by around 15 per cent.

It was not made clear how green tea diet might affect cholesterol levels. However, earlier researches show that particular compounds in green tea diet, play a part in controlling the amount of cholesterol absorbed by the body, increasing the amount excreted, and thereby preventing it from being stored in the liver. But further tests on the findings of the first group of researches were contradictory, as they found no important effect on the cholesterol levels of those tested.

The green tea diet, as with all diets depends on the diligence of the dieter. If it is included as part of a natural health routine, it may assist in achieving weight loss goals. If losing weight is your requirement, it is best pursued as part of wider health objectives.