The Healthy Skeptic on Green Tea

Posted By elissa on Aug 16, 2010 | 2 comments

Chris Woolston, “The Healthy Skeptic,” is a man after my own heart: someone who approaches claims with a skeptical eye, but is capable of evaluating them fairly. In today’s LA Times column, he provides an overview of green tea for weight loss.  A sample:

But even modest weight loss can be a positive step, says Arpita Basu, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. Basu was the lead author of a 2010 study of 35 obese people who consumed either 4 cups of strong green tea, two capsules of green tea extract (totaling 460 mg. of EGCG) or two placebo pills every day for eight weeks.

Subjects drinking green tea or taking green tea supplements lost an extra 5.5 pounds (2.5 kilograms) and 4.9 pounds (1.9 kg.), respectively, compared with the subjects who didn’t consume any green tea. Reporting in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, the researchers speculated that the weight-reducing power of green tea might be especially strong in people who are already obese.

Nobody should count on green tea alone to help them reach a healthy weight, but it could be a helpful part of a more comprehensive weight-loss program that includes diet and exercise, Basu says. Even if it didn’t help shed a single pound, the antioxidants in green tea might help lower the risk of heart disease, she adds.

This sounds about right: green tea/standardized green tea extract can offer a helpful –  and potentially healthful – nudge, but doesn’t represent a miracle. Good ol’ diet and exercise still rulz, claims by CCA Industries or Metabolife notwithstanding.