It’s Not a Myth: Green Tea Helps You Lose Weight. New Research Confirms It.

A Grand Experiment on the “Western” Diet

Scientists from the Brazilian University of Cruzeiro do Sul, led by Professor Rosemari Otton, studied the impact of green tea on obesity for over 15 years. The experiment, which they published in the journal Cell Biochemistry & Function, aimed to verify what influence green tea has on weight loss.

For four weeks, the researchers fed mice a high-calorie diet, equivalent to the so-called “Western diet.”

“We give them chocolate, filled cookies, caramel, condensed milk… in other words, the same type of food that many people consume daily,” says Rosemari Otton. After this period, the animals, who remained on the same diet, received green tea extract for another 12 weeks.

The Spectacular Influence of Green Tea on Obesity

The experiment results spoke for themselves. The mice that consumed the extract lost weight and showed significantly better glucose sensitivity, suggesting an improvement in insulin resistance. What’s more, in another paper published in 2022, obese mice treated with green tea lost up to 30 percent of their body weight.

“If a human loses 5 percent to 10 percent of their weight, that is already significant. Thus, this result in animals is very meaningful,” emphasizes Otton.

The Effect: Fat Loss, But Not Muscle Mass

The preservation of muscle tissue was also a surprising effect. Obesity often leads to muscle atrophy, but green tea prevented this. Furthermore, the extract increased the expression of genes responsible for glucose uptake and utilization in the muscles.

The study also showed that green tea acts selectively. “It makes obese animals lose weight but maintains a balanced weight for lean animals,” comments Otton.

The research team discovered that adiponectin, a protein involved in regulating metabolism, is the key. In the study involving mice lacking this protein, green tea produced no effects.

Green Tea for Weight Loss? There is Hope, But…

Although the results are promising, Professor Otton tempers enthusiasm by emphasizing that translating them to human conditions requires further research.

“What we see in animals doesn’t always replicate in humans,” she notes. But she adds that in Asian countries, where drinking green tea is a daily routine, obesity occurs less frequently.

This discovery is a step toward natural, safe, and widely available methods of combating obesity, which presents a valuable alternative to expensive drugs with numerous side effects. Professor Otton hopes the research will open the door to further analysis, allowing them to fully utilize the potential of this exceptional brew. Will green tea for weight loss become the new, revolutionary weapon in the fight against the obesity epidemic? Time will tell.

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Read this article in Polish: To nie mit: zielona herbata pomaga schudnąć. Są nowe badania