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Over the past few decades the benefits of green tea have exploded in the media, with the substance and its derivatives being touted as a cure for aging, cancer, and as a diet aid. Green tea for weight loss is probably the newest of the many virtues held up for this asian staple, and the research has only begun to catch up with the popular excitement about the tea’s potential for this purpose.
The idea of connecting green tea and weight loss comes from the newly-discovered thermogenic properties of some of the catechins in green tea, which have mostly been promoted as antioxidants. Now it is nothing new for a popular substance to suddenly be promoted as a weight loss aid, and few would probably be surprised at all to find that green tea extract weight loss is nothing but a fantasy of the over-active media imagination and a bunch of craft marketers who wanted to sell an inexpensive product for a higher margin.
However, there has begun to be some scientific research on the subject that has begun to turn up positive results. One must be cautious about interpreting the results of single studies because there is a selection bias in published studies. In order to get a published study, you usually have to have some positive results. Not all of the time but a lot of the time, and you are more likely to get your study published if your results are positive. It is just more interesting.
Few journals would have wanted to publish a study called “No Such Thing As Green Tea Weight Loss” before anyone had ever heard of the idea, because there would be no reason for it. In the world of science, no evidence means there is no effect. It doesn’t exist until someone has demonstrated it. So when they publish a positive study about the benefits of green tea weight loss, it could be that 50 studies have already found no benefit but this one just happened to find a positive effect by chance.
However, at least 50 studies have now been published examining whether green tea helps weight loss, and a recent meta-analysis found that overall the effects of all of these studies amount to a small positive effect. The effects are statistically significant, and are mediated by the level of catechins in the green tea weight loss supplement.
Catechins are the active molecules in the tea, which have all of the antioxidant and metabolic properties for which the tea is now becoming famous. The scientists have found that the more catechins there are, the more weight the individuals supplementing with it would tend to lose. Study participants also had an easier time managing their weight when they took a green tea weight loss pill, so this could be a good thing for dieters who chronically suffer the rebound effects of yo-yo dieting.
Of course, much of this is due to inadequate views about what causes weight loss, but anything that can help people to overcome their obesity in a healthy and natural way is positive. If green tea helps weight loss even a little bit, on top of its effects as an antioxidant and positive mood enhancing properties, it could be a powerful tool in the dieter’s arsenal.
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