Green is becoming the color for weight loss. With well-known medicinal properties, green tea has become one of the most popular diet aids in recent years. If you are thinking green to start losing weight, you may be asking if it will really help you lose those extra pounds.

In the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, one research study shows that adding green tea to your diet does speed the metabolism and oxidation of fat without having the negative feeling of a racing heart rate. Unlike other supplements that can affect your heart, green tea safely increases your metabolism. The higher metabolism increases the rate at which you burn calories; therefore, you start to lose weight. All this without negative side effects on your heart makes green tea even more appealing as a diet aid.

Some people find the taste of green tea to be unpleasant. If this is the case, you can buy green tea supplement capsules. Each capsule has 500mg of green tea extract, so it is safe to take 2 or 3 a day to get their best effect. If you can drink it, you can have 4 to 5 cups on average for the best results with up to 10 cups remaining safe.

Green tea also has other health benefits since it lowers the bad cholesterol in your system while increasing the good cholesterol. For those at risk of diabetes, it might be good to know that green tea can lower your blood sugar, also.

With several studies out there and others being conducted, we are finding new benefits all the time. Some medicinal properties in green tea are believed to help combat Alzheimer’s, the flu, colds, and other illnesses by boosting the immune system.

According to Dr. Nicholas Perricone who appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show, replacing your morning coffee with green tea will help you lose 10 pounds of a six-week period. He says that coffee has certain types of acids that increase the sugar and insulin in your body making it trap fat. Green tea on the other hand has the caffeine that most coffee lovers want, but it lowers the insulin, which will allow the fat to be burned off.

Studies released in the American Journal of Clinical Study also agree that green tea helps the oxidation of fat. It seems that not just the caffeine is at work, but some other property that is found in the green tea. Comparing the forms of green tea, it seems that the loose-leaf green tea has a higher quality than the green tea you find in the supermarket. You can find this form on the Internet by using a good search engine.

Of course, green tea is not a cure all for weight loss, but it does appear to be another valuable tool at the disposal of those who want to shed the pounds. In addition to the affects on weight, green tea also adds other valuable medicinal qualities to the diet that can help with other health issues.

In Asian countries like China, Japan and India, green tea is held in high esteem. It is a brew thought to purify the body, delight the senses and lift the spirits.

For at least fifteen years, medical researchers around the world have been looking at green tea. Studies in Japan have showed lowered rates of lung cancer, stomach cancer and skin tumors, and lowered blood cholesterol among people who drink green tea every day. Although black and oolong tea also contain some of the same preventive compounds, green tea is thought to contain the highest and most effective levels.

Men who drink at least 10 cups of green tea a day have lower cholesterol and may be less likely to suffer from heart disease, according to a Japanese study. The findings lend support to previous test tube and animal studies that suggest chemicals in green tea may ward off heart disease. The association between green tea and serum total cholesterol implies that green tea may act preventively against cardiovascular disease.

Researchers interviewed 1,371 men over the age of 40, and took their blood samples. Average cholesterol levels were about 183 among those who drank at least 10 cups of green tea a day compared to 194 among those who drank less than four cups a day. Researchers said the difference was big enough to suggest a health benefit from green tea.

Green tea also contains vitamin C; the amount varies depending on the type of leaf, but the average in two small cups of brewed tea is nearly equal to that in a cup of orange juice. In Asia, green tea was originally used by Zen monks to keep awake during long periods of meditation. A mild stimulant, it contains less caffeine than black tea and half the caffeine of coffee.

Green tea also apparently has antibacterial qualities, which were discovered 5,000 years ago by the Chinese, who used it to purify drinking water. The tea, which contains substantial amounts of fluoride, is also being studied in both US and Asia as a preventative for dental plaque.

“Green tea has no known toxicity, so it’s certainly not going to hurt you and it may very well help you,” said Dr. Hasan Muzaffar of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. In laboratory tests on animals, Dr. Muzaffar, a specialist in skin cancer, has found that green tea might help prevent or cure skin cancer.