Supplement Detective

By Curtis Alexander, Pharm.D.
America’s Natural Pharmacist

Summary: Green tea tablets appear to be a safe alternative to drinking brewed green tea for weight loss and contain all the beneficial compounds found in the brewed tea.  I wouldn’t recommend taking the green tea extract tablets every day – instead alternate every other day.  You may want to use caution if you have any liver conditions or take any blood thinning medications like warfarin or aspirin.

Dear Curtis: Do you think it’s better to take green tea extract tablets for weight loss or to try and drink the tea itself?

My Answer: From what the available studies have shown – here’s what we know about green tea’s use as a weight loss supplement.

First, green tea contains a number of pretty beneficial compounds.  Namely green tea catechins and epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG).  which have shown to reduce fat cell growth, fat mass, body weight, triglycerides, cholesterol, glucose and, maybe most importantly for fat loss, insulin.  It’s important to note though, that these positive effects were seen only in cell culture’s and lab animals.

There was one small study in Japan that looked at Oolong Tea containing catechins that showed positive reductions in body weight, fat mass and other body fat measurements.  And, since green tea also contains catechins it’s plausible that you could extend the benefits to green tea.

So, as far as helping with weight loss green tea may be of benefit.

Now, the meat of your question focuses on whether you should take the green tea diet tablets or just brew the tea.  Honestly, from what I can tell in the literature, it’s going to be based on how well you enjoy green tea itself.  Many people find green tea only mildly palatable and would rather take it in tablet form.

The main point is that pretty much all the compounds that are in green tea itself, are transferred to green tea tablets.  Including the caffeine.  There are green tea tablets that have been decaffeinated but you’ll have to look for that on the label.

The advantage of taking a green tea supplement is that the beneficial components I named above are actually concentrated in the tablets compared to the brewed tea.  So, if you do decide to take green tea in supplement form to help with weight loss I wouldn’t take the tablet every single day.  Maybe go two days on, one day off, or take a capsule every other day.  Besides, it’s generally a good idea to not take any supplement religiously every day (despite what a lot of manufacturers would lead you to believe).

Concerns About Green Tea

Now, another point I need to tackle that you didn’t ask about but that you might be warned on: liver damage.

Recently, green tea supplement manufacturers were forced to put warnings on their supplements about possible liver damage.  The one thing I have to say about the study that found the liver damage was that it used extremely high amounts of polyphenols injected into small animals.  In short, these are supraphysiological doses – doses that no human should be consuming.  So, personally, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that.

The one area you should be concerned about is if you have any preexisting liver conditions like cirrhosis (scarring of the liver) or hepatitis.  If so, you’ll want to talk to your doctor first about starting any green tea extracts.  The same goes if you are taking any blood thinning medications like warfarin or aspirin as green tea can interact with these medications.

Tags: green tea diet tablets, green tea extract tablets, green tea tablets for weight loss, mega green tea tablets, mega t green tea tablets

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 at 8:16 pm and is filed under Weight Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.