As a consequence of the higher occurrence of obesity, appears considerably greater risk of various diseases, such as coronary heart diseases, hypertension, noninsulin-dependent diabetes, pulmonary dysfunction, osteoarthritis, and various forms of cancers. Treatment of obesity is advantageous due to the fact that weight loss lowers the risk for mortality and morbidity. Even a tiny weight loss of 5 per cent to 10 per cent of original body weight demonstrates positive health effects. A little weight loss is a reasonable objective for the majority of people. However, long-term maintenance of body weight loss is usually unsuccessful.
Involvement in improving long-term weight maintenance is necessary for the effective treatment of obesity.
The use of natural herbal supplements constitutes a quickly expanding therapeutic area. One of these supplements is a green tea-caffeine mixture (epigallocatechin gallate and caffeine). Its well-known anti-obesity properties have been attributed to increased thermogenesis and fat oxidation.
On the basis of research carried out on humans, it was hypothesized that a green tea-caffeine mixture would decrease body weight regain in people after weight loss, probably through a thermogenic effect. Some research was carried out on body weight maintenance with the objective to examine whether the same green tea-caffeine mixture is able to improve weight maintenance by preventing or restricting weight regain after weight loss of 5 per cent to 10 per cent in moderately obese persons with a low or high habitual caffeine consumption.
The participants of the research were seventy-six overweight and fairly obese individuals, between 18 and 60 years of age. The participants were divided into two stratified groups according to gender, BMI, age, dietary restraint, resting energy expenditure (REE), and being either habitual low caffeine consumers or habitual high caffeine consumers. An extremely low energy diet intervention within four weeks was followed by three months of weight maintenance (WM). In the course of the WM period, the participants were being given a green tea-caffeine mixture (270 mg epigallocatechin gallate + 150 mg caffeine daily) or placebo.
Subjects succeeded in losing 5.9 + 1.8 (SD) kg (7.0 [+ or -] 2.1%) of total body weight (p < 0.001). At baseline, satiety was positively, and in women, leptin was inversely associated with subjects’ habitual caffeine intake (p < 0.01). High caffeine consumers decreased weight, fat mass, and waist circumference more than low caffeine consumers; REE was lowered less and respiratory quotient was decreased more throughout weight loss (p < 0.01). In the low caffeine consumers, in the course of WM, green tea still decreased body weight, waist, respiratory quotient and body fat, whereas REE was greater than before in comparison with a restoration of these variables with placebo (p < 0.01). In the high caffeine consumers, no effects of the green tea-caffeine mixture were noticed in the course of WM.
High caffeine consumption was discovered to be connected with weight loss through thermogenesis and fat oxidation in women. Caffeine consumption was also discovered to stifle leptin in women. In the participants who had habitually low caffeine consumption, the green tea-caffeine mixture enhanced WM, partly through thermogenesis and oxidation.
