Drinking green tea can help cut the extra flab on those sides and help reduce obesity as well, finds a study. The findings, published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, showed that mice fed a high-fat diet supplemented with green tea gained about 20 per cent less weight and had lower insulin resistance than mice fed an otherwise identical diet without tea.
Mice fed a diet of two per cent green tea extract had improved gut health including more beneficial microbes in the intestines and less permeability in the intestinal wall — a condition called “leaky gut” — than those that ate a diet without it. Leaky gut is a problem in humans that contribute to widespread low-grade inflammation. Researchers at Ohio State University states that this study provides evidence that green tea encourages the growth of good gut bacteria, and that leads to a series of benefits that significantly lower the risk of obesity.
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For eight weeks, the team fed half of the male mice a high-fat diet that causes obesity and half were fed a regular diet. In each of those groups, half ate green tea extract mixed with their food. Female mice were not included as they are resistant to diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance. Green tea also protected against the movement of endotoxin — the toxic bacterial component — out of their guts and into the bloodstream. Drinking green tea has also been linked to a lower risk of cancer, heart and liver disease.
