Green Tea Search

Green Tea Diet Aid

Green tea diet aid has been used in China as an herbal and medicinal beverage for more than four thousand years. The Chinese were so convinced with green tea’s healing powers and diet aids that they used green tea as treatment for everything from headaches to depressions and even as a diet aid.

Over the last few years, several researches have been conducted to identify what compound is present in green tea that makes it such a potent health drink and diet aid. The scientists have discovered that green tea diet aid has a high amount of antioxidants. These antioxidants present in green tea are responsible for many of green tea’s health benefits and diet aids.

A research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition highlighted the diet aids of green tea. According to the American and Swiss scientists who conducted the study at the University of Geneva, green tea diet aid is due to the presence of certain compounds that help in promoting thermogenesis in the body.

Lead scientist, Dr. Abdul Dulloo said in a press release that there are only two ways to weight loss and diet aid. Diet aid can be achieved either by reducing energy intake or increasing energy expenditure. Green tea, it seems, has compounds that can increase the body’s normal metabolic rates and at the same time suppress the appetite. This makes green tea the perfect diet aid to use.

At the University of Geneva where the study was conducted, Dr. Dulloo and his assistants used ten healthy young men as experimental subjects. They supposed that the main substance that makes green tea a possible potent diet aid is caffeine. To their hypothesis on green tea diet aid, they provided their participants on a typical “Western” diet, which is about forty percent fat, thirteen percent protein, and forty-seven percent carbohydrates.

Everyday, the researchers measured their subjects’ energy expenditure (the measurement used in determining the amount of calories burned within 24 hours) three times. They also kept tabs of the respiration quotient of their subjects to find out how well their carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are utilized.

When the data they collected were interpreted, they discovered that the men receiving regular dosages of green tea diet aid showed a significant four percent increase in their 24-hour energy expenditure. They also found that green tea diet aid can reduce the respiration quotient. This means that green tea diet aid can cause more fats to burn. On the other hand, those men who were not given green tea diet aid showed only minimal increases in their metabolic rates and almost no reduction in their respiration quotient.

Based on their findings, the scientists construed that the substance catechin polyphenol that occurs in high percentage in green tea makes it a very potent diet aid. These substances in green tea alters how the body utilizes the hormone norepinephrine, which is responsible for increasing metabolism and thus leading to diet aid.

In their conclusion, the scientists deduced that green tea owes its diet aid benefits to its high antioxidant content and the substance, catechin polyphenol. These substances in green tea help increase the speed of fat and calorie burning and optimize diet aid.