Tea and Fat Burning

Green Tea (Photo credit: bkajino)

I for one will still drink green tea every morning...
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The New York Times International Weekly
Science & Technology
FINDINGS

Tea and Fat Burning

Green tea extract is one of the most popular workout supplements on the market, used widely by athletes looking to increase fat-burning effects of exercise.

One of the key compounds in green tea is Epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG, a potent antioxidant.

Supporters say it reduces fat gain and enhances fat-burning. But the amount found in a cup of green tea is not enough to have much effect.

Green tea extracts, more richly concentrated with EGCG, may not be much better. In a study published in December in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, scientists looked at its effects on a group of 31 healthy men. Over a weeklong period, one group consumed a supplement twice daily – the equivalent of eight cups of green tea a day – while another group was given a placebo. A third group was given a placebo for six days and then the extract on the seventh day. At the start and end of the week, the men rode stationary bikes at “an exercise intensity known to elicit maximal fat oxidation.”

The researchers did extensive testing, all of which indicated that the green tea extract did not have a meaningful effect on the body’s ability to burn fat.

ANAHAD O’CONNOR


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Article taken from TODAY Paper, Saturday Edition, 05-Jan-2013

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Cream with green tea extract hinders HIV transmission: study

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 20-May-2009 02:41 hrs

A cup of green tea. A chemical found in green tea helps inhibit sexual transmission of the virus which causes AIDS, said a study Tuesday that recommends using the compound in vaginal creams to supplement antiretrovirals.

A chemical found in green tea helps inhibit sexual transmission of the virus which causes AIDS, said a study Tuesday that recommends using the compound in vaginal creams to supplement antiretrovirals.

Medical experts at Germany's University of Heidelberg said the compound could be a low-cost arrow in the quiver of medical weapons to fight the spread of HIV in research-poor countries.

The researchers said they determined that the green tea polyphenol, or vegetable tannin, called epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) is capable of neutralizing a protein in sperm which serves as a vector for viral transmission during sex.

EGCG degrades what is known as a semen-derived enhancer of virus infection, or SEVI, described in the study as "an important infectivity factor of HIV."
Writing in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers said they "recently identified a peptide fraction in human semen that consistently enhanced HIV-1 infection."

SEVIs capture viral elements and attach them to the surface of target cells, enhancing cell fusion and decreasing a cell's ability to repel viral threats.

EGCG "targets SEVI for degradation" and "abrogates semen-mediated enhancement of HIV-1 infection in the absence of cellular toxicity," said the researchers, some of whom work at the university's Heinrich-Pette-Institute for Experimental Virology and Immunology.

Because of its effects on semen-based HIV transmission threats, the study's authors said "EGCG appears to be a promising supplement to antiretroviral microbicides to reduce sexual transmission of HIV-1."

With the vast majority of the world's 33 million people with HIV infected through heterosexual sex, and as 96 percent of new infections occur in poor and developing nations, researchers said the use of green tea EGCG in topical creams would "provide a simple and affordable prevention method" to guard against HIV transmission.

Green tea, which originated in China and is widely consumed in Asia, the Middle East and growing numbers of western countries, is already popular for its antioxidant qualities. — AFP

From TODAYOnline.com; see the source article here.

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Like the cure but not the tea?

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