Now it is easy to find green tea extract in just about any health-food store. Touted for its health benefits for cardiovascular health, the metabolism and cancer prevention, green tea extract is shown to promote weight loss while improving health in the same stroke. Always talk with your physician before beginning any weight-loss program.

Standardized Extracts
Green tea extract is a supplement that contains the antioxidants, called catechins, found in green-tea leaves. Supplement companies standardize their products to contain a specific amount of catechins, which are the active component behind green tea’s positive benefits for the body.

Epigallocatechin-gallate, also known as EGCG, sticks out as a particularly powerful strain of the catechin group of antioxidants and is the one that can help supercharge our metabolic rate so that we can burn off fat.

Thermogenesis
David Tolson, a health scientist and contributor to the “Iron Magazine,” points out that green tea’s main effect on our metabolic rate relates to its effects upon the nervous system. He states that EGCG inhibits an enzyme that otherwise would breakdown a hormone called noradrenaline; as a result, increased levels of this hormone activates the rate of thermogenesis.

Since this process enables the body to sacrifice fatty acids to generate heat, it produces weight loss effects. Thermogenesis is simply a term that refers to a state of heat in the body.

Fat Tissue
Green tea might help fat-burning further by alleviating particular obstacles that will otherwise reduce the speed at which the body burns fuel. Back in 2009, scientists at the Ewha Women’s University in S.Korea, investigated the effects that green tea has upon fatty tissue. The scientists observed that green tea’s EGCG increased the activity of a hormone-sensitive fat enzyme called lipase upon these fat cells.

In other words, EGCG helps to break down fat cells so that they are released into the blood stream where they are then used as energy for the body. This is clear evidence that green tea extract possesses fat-burning properties.

Source:
Phytother Res.
2009 Aug;23(8):1088-91.
“Inhibitory effects of green tea catechin on the lipid accumulation in 3T3-L1 adipocytes.”
Lee MS, Kim CT, Kim IH, Kim Y.

Filed under: Belly Fat General

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