November 19, 2003
NUTRITION NEWS FOCUS
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Today's Topic: Tea Drinking and Body Weight

Tea, and some of the chemicals found in it, is being sold as a
weight-loss supplement and even added to multivitamins for weight
control.  All previous reports were on mice or rats except one that
used a concentrated extract from green tea in healthy, sedentary men.
A new observational study of tea drinking reports that tea drinkers
had less body fat.

Over 1,100 adults averaging 48 years old in Taiwan were studied and
43 percent drank tea one or more times a week for at least 6 months.
Regular tea drinkers were more likely to be male, cigarette smokers,
and coffee or alcohol drinkers.  Habitual tea drinkers of 10 years or
more had 20 percent less body fat than nondrinkers.  The study was
published in the September 2003 issue of Obesity Research.
< http://www.obesityresearch.org/cgi/content/abstract/11/9/1088 >

HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: If tea has an independent
effect on body weight or fat, it should show a dose-dependent effect.
That is, those who drank more should have less fat.  No such effect
was shown in this study.  Although the authors and the media concluded
that tea could be used as a weight loss beverage, this study does not
prove that.

*I think a cup or two of tea in place of a snack may result in skipping the
snack and lower caloric intake in many people. Or a cup of tea before a meal
could result in eating less but I don't think tea by itself has an
appreciable thermogenic effect unless it's a very strong cup of brew.......
Oliva