Green Tea Diet - Weight Loss, Health Benefits and Side Effects of Green Tea Extract
Posted: Sunday, June 27, 2010
by Julian Price
http://www.uk-freelance-content-writer.co.uk/
Green tea or green tea extract is said to be an excellent and natural way of encouraging weight loss, either as a drink or in the form of a pill or capsule.
If you have read much of the blurb about green tea as its popularity has grown in recent years, then it is likely you will have read that green tea is reported to reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer along with a whole host of other health benefits.
All well and good you may think. That is until you start reading some of the forums about how people have felt after taking a green tea extract pill, taking something called the “Super Green Tea Diet” or even just drinking green tea.
This article doesn’t attempt to downplay any of the reported health benefits of green tea; it simply seeks to add a level of balance and objectivity. There are many people (I’ve met them!) who when hearing about the latest big “health” thing will just jump in head first and begin taking the product without proper investigation and research.
The first thing to note is that it is highly unlikely that your doctor or GP is will either endorse or comment on any so called natural or herbal remedies. It is not ethical for them to do so when so many of the products available have not been clinically tested or proved.
It is also worth noting that health food stores are a business like any other, with profit as the main target (have you seen some of the prices of these products and supplements?!). This is not an attempt at cynicism, merely a noting of reality.
I had one cup of green tea using standard, commonplace tea bags. (I picked some up realising that I could use a little help shedding a few pounds) The drink itself is rather tasteless and not at all unpleasant in anyway. Within minutes of drinking, my head felt a little numbed in a similar sort of way it does when alcohol first kicks in, but nothing too alarming. However, when I got to bed I started to experience pins and needles and tingling in my arms and legs which lasted for several hours. I felt tired but fine when I woke up the next morning.
I was later informed, during studies of the “green tea” related forums and websites, that pins and needles and tingling were common side effects amongst many others that people had experienced.
My wife is a little more ambitious (braver?) with these kinds of products than I am and a few days earlier had started something called the “green tea diet” which was recommended to her by a health food store assistant. Basically these pills have green tea in them plus other “stuff”, including caffeine.
Basically, my wife was looking for something “natural” to treat the effects of fluid retention, especially in hands and legs and for something that also provided energy. (As many fluid retention treatments drain not only the fluid but energy as well) Super green tea diet seemed to fit the bill as it was listed as a diuretic that would help with the retaining of fluid problems.
My wife took these pills for three days, and each day felt a little more poorly than the last. Determined to persevere because our bodies often take a little while to adjust to new things, day three was too much, increasing headaches, uncomfortable stomach, a complete lack of energy and general feelings of being “spaced out” and odd. Thinking it was perhaps the extra caffeine dose in these pills, on day 4 she ditched the super green tea diet and decided to take a simple green tea extract pill.
Within an hour or so of taking the green tea extract, my wife was feeling very poorly indeed! Extreme feelings of nausea and the worst headache she had ever had (being a migraine sufferer of 20 years, it was a pretty bad headache!). Perhaps inevitably, later in the day my wife was bed bound and vomiting almost continually for about 6 hours.
We rang doctors and described symptoms and my wife was rushed to hospital, thinking she may be displaying signs of meningitis. Obviously and thankfully, it wasn’t meningitis and after several hours of observation and managing to puzzle all the doctors in the process she was allowed home and is now much better.
We cannot prove that green tea is the culprit here, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that it was. The feelings I had after just one cup of the stuff, my wife’s symptoms seeming to be in common with many of those that are reported on forums, including people saying they felt so sick, they felt they would die!
Of course, everybody is different and all bodies have different tolerance levels to different things. Despite our own experiences with green tea, it doesn’t mean that it won’t prove hugely beneficial to someone else.
However, the real message here is to check out the product or remedy you are thinking of taking before you actually do. Just because it says “natural” on the package and lists a whole bunch of health benefits, doesn’t mean it will be good for you personally.
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)Interesting article, Julian. It's great to read the other side of the story for once. Thanks.Hi Jennifer, thanks for the reading. Glad you found it interesting. :)
I was sipping a cup of green tea as I read this Julian. You offered some very good advice in that you really should get as much information as possible before trying a new product as there can be side effects. As you said, everyone reacts differently. I'm trying to substitute a cup of green tea for a coffee once a day. I had heard ot the many benefits as well. Thanks Julian. I'm glad to hear your wife is better, that must have been a real scare.Hi Brianna, I am glad you are enjoying your green tea! I can't even look at box of the stuff without feeling a little queasy now!lol Thanks for taking time to read and comment.
Hello! Glad i came across this article. I myself was thinking of starting to drink green tea and was wondering about any side effects of it. (which we don't hear much about). :)Hi bubs, I hope the article was able to give you a more balanced position in which to make your big green tea decision. Thanks for reading!
Thanks for sharing this information with us, iam a Green Tea drinker since 4 yrs and iam fine and yes i agree with you that products act differently on people. I really hope yr wife is fine now.Hi Kaneta, thanks for reading and contributing. Thanks for asking about my wife, she is fine now, thank you.
Great article Julian. I used to drink the stuff by the gallon, and then eat the teabag. with a bit of salt it goes down a treat. The best green tea bags can be found at a store on Shrewsbury lane. Wonderful article thankyou.
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