Does green tea help burn fat?
The effect of green tea extract on fat oxidation at rest and during exercise: evidence of efficacy and proposed mechanisms.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Green tea extract’s fat-burning effect disappears in regular caffeine consumers.
Most people assume caffeine boosts metabolism, so they think green tea’s caffeine helps. But here, caffeine intake actually cancels out the benefit.
Practical Takeaways
If you drink less than 3 cups of coffee a day and exercise regularly, try adding green tea extract (250–500mg EGCG) for 12+ weeks to potentially boost fat burn during workouts.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Green tea extract’s fat-burning effect disappears in regular caffeine consumers.
Most people assume caffeine boosts metabolism, so they think green tea’s caffeine helps. But here, caffeine intake actually cancels out the benefit.
Practical Takeaways
If you drink less than 3 cups of coffee a day and exercise regularly, try adding green tea extract (250–500mg EGCG) for 12+ weeks to potentially boost fat burn during workouts.
Publication
Journal
Advances in nutrition
Year
2013
Authors
A. Hodgson, Rebecca K. Randell, A. Jeukendrup
Related Content
Claims (6)
Drinking green tea extract can help your body burn more fat over a full day—even if you remove the caffeine from it.
Drinking green tea extract might help some people burn more fat while sitting around, with studies showing about a 16% boost on average—but it doesn’t work the same for everyone because the tea’s ingredients and your body type can change the results.
Drinking green tea extract for a long time might help animals burn fat better by turning on certain genes in their liver and muscles, but we don’t know yet if this happens in people too.
People say green tea helps you burn fat by blocking a specific enzyme in your body, but no one has actually proven this happens in real humans—only in test tubes or animals.
If you drink less than about three cups of coffee a day, green tea extract might help you burn fat better—but if you’re already a big caffeine drinker, it might not help as much.