Tea & Weight Loss
Tea is the most-consumed beverage worldwide next to water. For over five thousand years, people have been getting a lift from the elixir made from tea leaves. But it's only been in the last three decades that researchers have immersed themselves in the science behind tea's widely believed health benefits.
In a recent article published by the USDA, the metabolic effects of tea, in particular oolong tea is receiving closer scrutiny.
William Rumpler is a physiologist investigating the ancient Chinese belief that oolong tea is effective in controlling body weight. On the average, volunteers burned 67 more calories per day drinking tea, then those that drank the water placebo. Perhaps most interesting was that fat oxidation was a significant 12 percent higher after the full-strength tea treatment than after the water treatment.
The data suggests that a compound in oolong promotes preferential burning of fat as an energy source.
It is universally accepted that caffeinated tea raises metabolic rate because caffeine is a stimulant. The interesting part of the study, which agrees with findings from a similar study in England, was that when you drink tea you raise fat burning higher then you would drinking a caffeinated drink other then tea.
Source: USDA
