When it comes to burning belly fat, HIIT workouts and intermittent fasting may come to mind first – but what about tea?
New research published in the journal Nutrients reveals that drinking oolong tea can help you burn fat while sleeping. More specifically, researchers at Tsukuba University in Japan found that drinking just two cups of traditional Chinese tea a day speeds up the fat burning processes in the body. (Related: 15 underrated tips for losing weight that really work.)
“Like all teas, oolong contains caffeine, which affects energy metabolism by increasing our heart rate. However, studies suggest that drinking tea can also increase fat breakdown, regardless of the effects of caffeine,” senior author of study, Professor Kumpei Tokuyama, said in a statement.
“We therefore wanted to examine the effects of oolong versus caffeine alone on energy and fat metabolism among a group of healthy volunteers.”
What did the researchers discover after studying the participants for two weeks? Both oolong tea – which is partially oxidized and neither is entirely considered a green or black tea, since it exhibits characteristics of both – and pure caffeine increased the breakdown of fat by 20% compared to those who took a placebo.
An even more impressive finding is that the positive effects of oolong tea on the body were maintained overnight. Interestingly, neither the group that drank oolong tea or pure caffeine during that two-week period experienced an increase in energy expenditure. This observation suggests that the participants may have developed a tolerance to the stimulating effects of both treatments.
In addition, there were no noticeable changes in the sleep patterns of either group, or even the time it took them to fall asleep, despite the fact that both treatments involved caffeine – a known sleep disturber. Lack of sleep can also disrupt energy metabolism – a group of processes that the body uses to break down food and use it for energy – which can cause weight gain over time. However, oolong did not appear to have any negative effect on the participants’ sleep.
So, should you consider drinking oolong every day? Professor Tokuyama says that while the effects of oolong on fat breakdown during sleep suggest that tea may help control body weight, it is unclear whether these effects will actually lead to fat loss over an extended period of time.
“In addition, we want to test decaffeinated oolong tea to better distinguish the effects of caffeine from other components of tea, which will help us understand exactly how oolong helps break down fat,” he said in the statement.
Now, be sure to read about the side effects of drinking caffeine, according to science.