You can buy green tea capsules to help with weight loss -- another item to swallow every day as part of your nutrition program. You can skip the capsules, and just drink green tea. Or you can get the benefits of both in a balanced supplement. Here are the facts for making a wise choice.
Green tea capsules sold for weight loss almost always have caffeine added. Caffeine raises the heart rate, increases blood pressure, and overall has some effect on raising the body's metabolism. The natural polyphenols and catechins in this kind of tea, especially epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG, for short), appear to add to this effect.
Green Tea Extract
If you do buy the capsules, watch out for any extras added to the product because they're supposed to add "punch" to the combination. Some manufacturers have been forced to remove ingredients that caused fairly severe side effects, like heart palpitations.
Or you can just skip the capsules and drink the tea. Green tea, made from unfermented tea leaves, has much higher levels of the polyphenols and catechins than black tea. All tea naturally contains caffeine, too, though green contains less caffeine than black tea or coffee. Drinking could be a healthy choice, especially if you drink it as a substitute for several cups of coffee or cans of soda during the day.
However, millions of people are sensitive to caffeine. For them, it can cause a racing heartbeat, nervousness, trembling hands, or difficulty sleeping. Caffeine also raises blood pressure and increases stomach acid production, so if you have any problem with elevated blood pressure, heartburn or excess stomach acid, for example, you might be wise to avoid caffeine altogether. Pregnant women might want to skip anything containing caffeine, because it crosses the placenta and circulates through the bloodstream of the unborn baby.
Personally, I like tea and I drink some of the green variety almost every day instead of coffee. The relatively small amount of caffeine doesn't seem to bother me a bit.
But I also get the benefits without the caffeine, in a balanced supplement that contains wonderful antioxidants that work in synergy with the tea extract. Those antioxidants include L-Glutathione, enteric-coated and in a special "reduced" form to make it absorbable; lutein, bilberry, L-carnosine, and grape extract.
Now, that's a balanced package of antioxidants. After that, a green tea capsule is a complete waste of money, in my opinion.
Check my website for more details on why I skip the capsules and still get all the benefits of green tea extract
