Green tea containing methylated catechins is helpful in your fight against obesity

Main Point:

Researchers have found that green tea with highly absorbent catechins can help in preventing diet induced lipid metabolism disorder thus helping in obesity control.

Published in:

[sociallocker]Scientific Reports

Study Further:

Green Tea:

It is the tea made from leaves that have been dried but not fermented, and that is pale green in color. Usually the leaves of Camellia sinensis L. is used for the preparation of green tea. It is famous for important health benefits as for example these are antioxidant, hypocholesterolemic, have cardioprotective activities and have anticancer properties.

Green tea has abundant polyphenolic compounds (“catechins”) and is found to have the beneficial properties of tea. One of the methylated catechins is (−)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) that is found to be related to anti-obesity effects.

In Japan, two popular tea cultivars are Benifuuki, which has methylated catechins such as EGCG, and Yabukita, which has no EGCG.

Obesity:

Obesity is the state of being unhealthily overweight. It is a kind of metabolic disturbance that is found to be caused by an imbalance between fat synthesis (lipogenesis) and fat breakdown (oxidation). It may increase the chances of cardiovascular disorders.

Adipose Tissue:

It is connective tissue in animal bodies that contains fat.

Triglyceride:

It is a chemical compound (ester) formed from a molecule of the alcohol glycerol and three molecules of fatty acids. Triglycerides constitute many of the fats and oils of animal and vegetable tissues and, like cholesterol, may have an adverse effect on human health in excessive amounts.

Present Research:

Researchers, in the present study, worked on mice model and found that “Benifuuki had much greater lipid-lowering effects than Yabukita”. This shows that methylated catechins have potential lipid-lowering effects.

Researchers found that Benifuuki can reduce adipose tissue weights and liver triglyceride content. As compared to Yabukita, Benifuuki has much higher hypolipidemic activity and anti-obesity effects.

Researchers have also reported that green tea suppresses genes that are related to cholesterol synthesis, thereby decreasing cholesterol synthesis.

“Tea containing unique methylated catechins such as EGCG3”Me (epigallocatechin-3-O-(3-O-methyl) gallate) significantly downregulates the hepatic expression of lipid-synthesis genes such SREBP1-c, ACC1, FAS and SCD1,” Researchers wrote in the paper.

Research Suggestions:

“Studies focusing on whether EGCG3”Me has lipid-lowering effects in vivo and in vitro are lacking. Therefore, further studies are needed to better understand the mechanism of Benifuuki and EGCG3”Me,” Researchers noted in the paper.

Reference:

Takashi Suzuki et al. (2013). Green Tea Extract Containing a Highly Absorbent Catechin Prevents Diet-Induced Lipid Metabolism Disorder Scientific Reports DOI: 10.1038/srep02749
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